Category: Reviews

By Robin Reinders and Ashley Zhou

‘Prodigious. Sleek. Attuned.’ – Robin Reinders

‘Confident. Specific. Genuinely emotional.’ – Ashley Zhou

‘Oh – I think my line is bad.’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘My int—ernet.’

Connection unstable. The phrase appears in a small grey box at the top of the screen just as we’re about to launch into conversation. There is perhaps no musical more suited to a review conducted over a video chat than Dear Evan Hansen. A story shaped by emails, social media, likes and shares, digital grief and the uneasy gap between who we are in life and who we present as online – it feels oddly at home in the fragmented language of notifications, messages and screens. Tone Deaf Theatre Company’s inspiring production, co-directed by Lauren Williams and Estelle Pollard-Cox and assisted by Bee Wilkes, embraces that world full-heartedly while never losing sight of the human relationships beneath it. Supported by a live band, a fantastic creative team, a top-notch production crew, and a committed cast working in remarkable sync, the production navigates the show’s familiar emotional highs and ethical ambiguities with vivid energy, earnest sincerity, and no shortage of ambition.

It’s fitting, then, that our response should take the form of a conversation mediated by the internet. At its heart, Dear Evan Hansen is a musical about talking about it. Rather than write a conventional review, we reset our routers, opened a video call and started talking.

This conversation has been edited for clarity

R: The first thing that comes to mind when I think of this production is the demeanour of Ollie Painter’s Evan: the mannerisms, the gestures.

A: I was going to say that. He leads the show so confidently, it feels like he’s been born on the stage. I also think of the line in ‘For Forever’ when Evan sings ‘I climb till the entire sun shines on my face’. Jonathan Wilson-Down’s lighting design has this bright orange light bathing the audience, and it’s the most gorgeous, affecting rendition of the song I’ve ever experienced.

R: It’s so arresting. When it’s in the process of happening, you can’t really comprehend it until these lights are washing over and brilliantly blinding you.

A: Yeah. It’s also the first time it happens, and while it’s used a few more times in the play, I think this was the most effective instance.

R: Ollie Painter is so prodigious, so impressive. For a first-year student to have such firm control of the audience and to capture the mannerisms of Evan Hansen so well – he really adopts the perfect disposition. Some of the character choices he makes in the fidgeting of his shirt and the cracks and wavering inflection in his voice, and the cadence of his voice is present in his speech as much as in his vocals.

A: When you try to ramble, it can so easily come across as illegible. He makes it sound musical – it’s never hard to follow. And after watching, we were talking about how he has all of the best Ben Platt-isms without any of the drawbacks.

R: Yes, I think we should coin the term Ben Platt-ism.

A: Exactly, exactly. It redeemed every time I had to watch Ben Platt in the movie version.

R: I’m glad it was a healing process for you. Thank you, Tone Deaf Theatre Company!

PRODUCTION

A: I enjoyed the emphasis on the musical’s social media aspect, which every department leaned into. Wilson-Down’s lighting design had colourful rectangles projected behind the characters while they were speaking online, each assigned a specific one, and I thought it was an interesting way to highlight them as individual avatars. It brought the expanse of the Internet into the very sparse, peeled-back set.

R: It really does foreground the Internet aspect, which is so contemporary and so specific to Dear Evan Hansen. The conversations that happen between two characters are often online, and the squares with the frowning or smiling faces emphasised the distance and how centred everything is online, for better or for worse. One thing I found interesting was that Connor’s coloured squares were white, and at one point, Evan’s turned from blue to white. Connor’s presence lives on through Evan in this very unorthodox way; not in a traditional sense of a friend honouring a friend, but no less earnest.

A: Loosely connected, but I also really enjoyed the decision to keep Connor onstage throughout, especially during ‘Only Us’ where he watches Evan and Zoe confess their feelings to each other.

R: He haunts everything.

A: Exactly. And I think the co-directors show a keen awareness of how fucked up the situation is and refuse to make it a typical love song. They make us very aware of the Connor in the room.

R: He’s going to linger in their relationship no matter what, and he’s always going to poison it in that way, whether he wants to be present or not.

A: We’ll get into it later, but it rescues the more squicky aspects of the plot for me.

R: I do like how we’re first introduced to that haunting presence in ‘For Forever’ when the lie first starts, and he’s leaning on the balcony and watching as Evan starts to very awkwardly spin this tale. And as he gets more invested and starts to find his own catharsis and his own healing from his own personal trauma related to the tree through indulging in this fantasy, he gets more and more comfortable and confident in relying on it. There’s a moment where he makes eye contact with Connor on the upper part of the stage, and there’s almost this connection, and that’s the moment where you realise that Evan has become very attached to this lie himself; It’s not just about appeasing the Murphys anymore, he’s invested in it in his own narcissistic manner.

PERFORMANCE

A: I was very surprised by Maiwa Banda’s Alana Beck. They nuance a very two-dimensional character on-page and deepen the parallel isolation and disconnect each character experiences. She spends most of her time talking to a screen, and it’s only in ‘Good For You’ where she gets to express that frustration. Banda plays her so well, and they sound incredible.

R: One thing I really appreciated about that performance and that characterology was that Alana is not a contrast to Evan in that Evan is selfish, and she’s altruistic. She’s also getting something out of it – she didn’t know Connor very well, and she’s enjoying the fact that she’s doing good by raising money through him. Even though she exaggerates her connection to him and she arguably doesn’t do very morally sound things – in sharing his suicide note online without consulting his family, for instance – she does it from a good place. But she’s not vilified for it. The point is not that one character is good and one character is bad, the point is that they’re all teenagers, and they all connect to this guy in school who took his life in different ways. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. His death incites a call to action from many different people, even if he wasn’t personal to them himself.

A: Critiques of Dear Evan Hansen tend to exaggerate the unbelievability of Evan’s actions but, in very small ways, each character does the same thing. And this production projects that through deepening the portrayal of Heidi, Cynthia, Larry, Zoe and so on.

R: I was going to mention in my spotlight – Jared. Louis Williams: incredible comedic timing, incredible line delivery. Just elevates a side character who only really serves as Evan’s foil. Williams brings such life to him. I love the part where he tries to interject himself into the Connor narrative, and when Connor leaves the stage, they high-five as if they were old pals. 

A: And the choreography! The awkward teenager of it all.

R: ‘Sincerely Me’! Jobe Hart himself is beyond great as Connor – personifying that triangularity of the volatile, angst-riddled young man and then the comedic role as Evan’s counterpart ‘best mate’ and then going on to embody Evan’s crises of conscience as well. He moves between character temperaments seamlessly. And I suppose we’re both in agreement as to which character ended up becoming the emotional nucleus of the play. Ollie Painter is going to continue to do great things for the rest of his student career with DST.

A: And beyond! I was very into Dear Evan Hansen as a teenager and it sort of went away when I saw the film version of it. I became a lot more critical of its message. The soundtrack by itself has amazing songs that oddly work less the more you know about the full story. This production made me realise that the success of Dear Evan Hansen as a musical hinges on its ability to sell the emotional sentiment of it without leaning into melodrama. We’re in agreement that Tone Deaf managed this easily.

R: I have a similar history with it. I was exposed to it when I was maybe twelve or thirteen. I was on my computer a lot and I think that there are certain times at that age where you really do feel like Evan or like Connor. It doesn’t really matter how present your family is, sometimes you feel this great divide and it’s difficult to reckon with that. So it’s nice to come across a play that understands that feeling that way doesn’t make you a bad kid or a bad person. It’s just something that you’re allowed to feel and that can be dealt with. It can be metabolised into something that does good in the world and incorporates others. It was very formative for me, and watching it as a twenty-year-old now it’s no less impactful, only in a far different way. I was quite emotional in the audience and I really felt giddy – like a child all over again. It took me back and healed that teenaged confusion, which was really lovely. And I think all student performances should aim to touch you in a deep part of your heart. Tone Deaf’s Dear Evan Hansen was very ambitious in all it aimed to achieve, but it paid off one hundred percent.

A: I think you can feel the personal relationship that every person in the production had to the show, too. It’s impossible to name everyone but the company clearly understood the heart of what it meant and represented, and they reinterpreted it in an incredibly specific manner. Rory Collins and Theo Henman (assisted by Kai Doak) create a set washed in a simple white so that anything could be projected onto its surface. And it parallels everybody’s experience with Dear Evan Hansen in a very lovely way. To turn a stageplay into a multimedia venture with film reels, video editors and stage performers as screen actors; it expands its space in an interesting way. Like the Internet, where you’re seeing the expanse of the world within the confines of a stationary computer screen, the set is static.

R: Absolutely. Very much a multidisciplinary production that reflects the musical’s narrative. I’m curious – are there any aspects that feel newly relevant to you in a way that the original writers didn’t intend? I really enjoyed the use of projections in two instances: seeing the emails actually written during ‘Sincerely Me’ and the TikToks during ‘You Will Be Found’. The sort of chronically online emphasis on virtue signalling, which in a sense is what Alana does, and the cult of virality that has become very present in this decade specifically. That culture has intensified from the Facebook days or the early Instagram days into something massive in terms of TikTok and Twitter/X. ‘Share this everywhere’ means something far greater than what it once did; the scale of the Internet has expanded so much. This musical certainly means something different when absorbed into modern pop culture and experienced contemporarily. I suppose it further emphasises the message that it’s trying to get across: that you can make a real difference with your words online.

A: Yeah. Characters like Jared and Alana are far closer to reality than the musical and their comedic positions would have it seem. It’s a believable part in teenage political awakening and self-construction. It’ll really have you share an Instagram story and think this is the most important thing in the world.

R: That idea of condensing something that is very morally weighty and traumatogenic into an Instagram infographic or Twitter post – and that aspect comes into the light more when you’re watching it in 2026 rather than 2015.

A: There’s also the element of the orchard’s tangibility, which all of the posting and campaigning has culminated in. Regardless of intention, it’s a physical place that the Murphys can be in to process their grief.

R: And I think that line that Zoe says at the end – where she says she wanted to be sure Evan saw the orchard – is very important, actually, because a lot of the story takes place online and the manner in which Evan connects to Connor or the Murphy family is very much through the Internet. Their affective connection has no tangible proof. All of the narrative is mediated through the digital. So Zoe makes sure that Evan has some sort of palpable, discernible place to come back to – a very literal opportunity to ‘go outside and touch grass’, if you will. It’s there, in part, to prove to him that this did happen. You can argue that sort of resonates in a post-COVID world of teenagers even more so than in 2015; you’re stuck inside all day and all of your relationships are forced to occur completely online. Once you do get the chance to go outside, you have to make sure you take it. The orchard is more important than the emails.

A: From a set perspective, I think it’s interesting to have the same tree branches hanging from the flys. Throughout the musical, it is kind of like a physical thing that’s there but it exists in Evan’s imagination.

R: Exactly.

A: And it only becomes real in the last scene where they’re actually at the orchard.

R: No, exactly. Was there one scene or number which really stood out to you? I personally am going to spotlight a rather underappreciated song, ‘To Break in a Glove’; I think that was an incredible performance – I loved the use of props, I loved the use of the baseball glove and the shaving cream and I thought that it was very moving. I thought the performance by Leon Perry-Masey as Larry Murphy was fantastic, having that disposition of being confused on how to metabolise his grief and deal with his lack of a son. It was very moving, very subtle. And then Evan not really knowing how to be a son to a father, I think the actors played off one another really well. That interplay of not knowing how to be a dad versus not knowing how to be a son and kind of figuring it out through the arbiter of the glove.

A: Yeah, it’s all very awkwardly boyish.

R: Yes! Yes, it is! It feels like something out of a coming-of-age film from the late 80s, very wholesome, and it’s a familiar picture, I think, which resonates with young and older audiences.

A: And it loops Mr Murphy into the teenage-boydom of his son; he’s never really been able to experience that relationship either. He’s kind of not been a father to his son, to Connor. For me, I’ll say I think that Lucy Rogers as Heidi Hansen plays such an interesting emotional arc throughout the musical and that really hits its stride when her rage boils over in ‘Good for You’.

R: Yes.

A: She has the energy of a rockstar!

R: The rasp in her voice!

A: I know! She plays a frazzled mum on the verge of a breakdown and it explodes into this incredible rock number in ‘Good for You’, which has this most incredible four-part harmony in the show, and it’s also one of my favourite songs and I was genuinely blown away by that number. That performance was also contrasted by the broken, small, emotional intensity of ‘So Big / So Small’ – I could hear the person behind me sobbing!

R: The duality of character that she embodies is very impressive and –

A: So good!

R: I totally agree with everything you’re saying. I like how she cares in the ways that she can, and how those become recurring motifs and refrains throughout: she always says ‘Don’t stay up too late, it’s a school night’ and also always asks him if he’s eaten. One of the first things she says to him in the opening is ‘So you just decided not to eat last night?’, and if she’s having to run off to work she always says something along the lines of ‘I’ve left money on the counter, you must order something for yourself for dinner’ or ‘Make sure you eat something’. So she’s always present in the way that she can be, and it’s almost as though when it’s too hard to be close to him in a more complex sense, those are the tools in her toolbox she returns to and relies on to make sure he knows she loves him.

A: And Lucy Rogers as well plays it with such an awkwardly childish energy. She finger-guns Evan, and she makes exaggerated poses – like Mr Murphy, her character is trying to relate to him in this very disconnected way, much like how all the teenagers are struggling to relate to each other in the world of the Internet. And the same can be said about India Vivian’s Cynthia Murphy, whose frazzled mum is more upfront in her desperation. Their dual ‘Anybody Have a Map?’ is an immediately engrossing opener. 

R: Definitely. And I think it’s difficult to conceive of your child when your child is a teenager because when your child is a teenager, I feel in a lot of ways you interpret them as all the ages they have ever been at once.

A: Yes.

R: So you don’t know how childish you can be with them, because you don’t know the threshold of their embarrassment of you as a parent. And I think that’s a difficult thing to reckon with – how silly can you be? How seriously do they take themselves, and you? How much do they like you anymore? There are all these very strange questions you have to ask yourself about your child, and it’s awkward because you don’t know how to toe the line between treating them like your child and treating them with the respect of an adult because they’re in this limbo which is going to last quite a while.

A: Yeah, yeah. And, again, bringing it back to the sparseness of the set – and also the sparseness of the props – it feels like it supports this very clear message the entire production is trying to tell us.

R: Certainly. One creative decision I’d like to highlight is the costume design. I think that is a very underappreciated aspect of the musical. I think the teenage characters were dressed extremely true-to-life, but there was also a very clear divide between them and the older characters in the maturity of their choice of dress. But at the same time, it didn’t feel like a group of twenty-somethings attempting to pass themselves off as far younger or far older than they really were; there was no sense of wearing ‘big-kid’ clothes. I think it struck that balance really well. However, one thing that I especially loved about the costume design was the hand-drawn stars on the cuffs of Zoe’s jeans.

A: Yes!

R: It was such a subtle touch. You only really noticed it if you looked for it, and I think that was a design choice made by a team that truly loves the source material and is in deep dialogue with it and knows it very intimately. I really appreciated that decision.

A: Also, Eve Pearce as Zoe Murphy, her ‘Requiem’ made me cry!

R: Very moving voice, very powerful voice.

A: Very powerful.

R: One which can oscillate between extremely soft and quiet and very belt-y and rich in tone and emotion, for sure. And she wields that contrast very well.

A: Yeah. And she feels like she has a life beyond the stage and beyond the character which she plays in this theatrical moment. She feels very embodied.

R: Oh, for sure! She carries a presence with her which is not an easy thing to do as actors, especially a young actor. I almost feel like that’s something you have to accrue throughout your career as you embody different roles and gain different insights and wisdom. But she’s just got it from the jump; somehow, she has this quality about her.

A: Yeah. It also feels kind of criminal that we haven’t yet talked about ‘You Will Be Found’.

R: Haha, yeah! It’s the elephant in the room!

A: The Connor in the room!

R: If you will!

A: I love that the stage crew were dressed in fitting costumes –

R: Yes!

A: And that they came out during ‘You Will Be Found’. Because it felt like the ensemble beyond the cast was being acknowledged in the number that is supposed to bring everybody together. And it’s buoyed by the cast finally singing all as one, so beautifully. It’s the cumulative strength of everyone involved. 

R: Absolutely. And in that way, it’s almost metatheatrical. Because when I was watching the musical, I don’t know about you, but it of course felt like I was watching a brilliant production of Dear Evan Hansen, but it also just felt like a love letter to the musical itself somehow –

A: Yeah, yeah.

R: And I think that comes across in the way the production team is so enmeshed in the performance. When the lights dim and you can sort of see them and their silhouette, it doesn’t feel jarring at all – because it feels like a group of people very lovingly telling a very new story that somehow feels very old since it’s very important to a lot of us as young adults who first experienced it in the beginnings of adolescence.

A: Completely.

LIGHTNING ROUND

Best performance?

A: Ollie Painter as Evan! But accompanied by a flawless cast.

R: Seconded! Ollie Painter as Evan!

Best song?

A: Incredibly hard question but ‘Good For You’. Isaac Short on the drums!

R: ‘Sincerely, Me’ – it’s the one I had the most fun with!

Most effective staging choice?

A: I liked the choice to put Connor on the decking overlooking everybody – and also in ‘Good For You’ when Heidi appears at the top of it, and all the characters surround Evan while he’s belting in the middle.

R: In ‘Waving Through a Window’, during the very desperate ‘falling in a forest’ bridge, the ‘there’s nobody around’ being captured through the cast walking around the stage engrossed in their phones and oblivious to Evan was excellent.

Most interesting or unorthodox choice?

A: I liked having actual liquid being drunk on stage. And when Heidi downed the whole glass of wine!

R: Oh! Jared’s Labubu! (A: Wait, he had a Labubu? / R: He had a Labubu! On his tote! I thought that was so fitting to his personality!)

Most emotionally devastating moment?

A: At the dinner table scene where Evan sings ‘Words Fail’. I think it’s just hit after hit when all of them start leaving the stage.

R: I’m just very moved by ‘For Forever’, very moved by the bridge when Evan starts to visualise Connor racing towards the trees, and he sort of gets to rewrite this awful self-inflicted trauma and author himself a friend and a happier circumstance. It’s very teenage.

Most unexpectedly funny moment?

A: How Eve Pearce chooses to interact with Evan as Zoe. I think she squeezes a lot of comedy and sentiment and endearment out of their dynamic, and you can see the seeds of them possibly being a good couple before everything goes down. She’s incredibly embodied as a performer.

R: Anything that came out of Jared’s mouth – the inflection of his voice! – and also in contrast to that, anything that came out of Alana’s mouth and her calm, monotonous manner of speaking. I love how into bureaucracy and efficiency she is. But their respective tones of voice and respective styles of comedy in their own characters are so great.

We blanch at our timer (twenty minutes we allotted, and approximately forty it has been) and nod to ourselves – virtually, to each other – in agreement: on a scale of 1-10, Tone Deaf Theatre Company’s Dear Evan Hansen achieves an easy 10. Our call blinks out, and we’re back, staring at our screens, buzzing. It’s hard to imagine it getting any better.

Featured Image: Tone Deaf Theatre Company

By Matt Lo

Gorillaz have always had a special place in my heart. Before finding them, my music taste was gray, dull and lacked substance (mostly just Heart radio hits). At the age of 14, I was first introduced to the band when a friend played On Melancholy Hill, a song that I still resonate with and remains my top pick out of any of their albums. I was instantly a fan – a fan of the music, a fan of the album, a fan of the four faces. For years I listened to their discography – enjoying each replay, the music aptly accompanied by the band members’ captivating stage personas. 

I must admit, I have not been dialed into their music in recent years. That is not to say their music crashed and burned, I had just personally moved onto the ‘hardcore light house’ playlist on Spotify by the age of 16. The albums following Plastic Beach were good. I enjoyed listening to the The Now Now and Cracker Island, but I felt something was missing – or was it something too familiar? 

Fast forward to 2025: I was excited to find out a new Gorillaz album was coming out. Caught with a tingling sensation in my belly that this album ‘could be their redemption’, like a sheep I jumped onto the pre-save queue. I’m happy to say, their newest project is certainly one to keep note of. For this album, Gorillaz went full method, travelling to locations like Delhi, Mumbai, and Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India. Prior to the album’s release, fans got a sneak peek of the music featured through their visually stunning animated short inspired by the Jungle Book, showing the characters journeying towards their destination. Their destination? You might ask – Death.   

In classic Gorillaz fashion, The Mountain is made with the purpose of conveying a central theme. This time, it’s rebirth and the afterlife. To talk about The Mountain, one must first mention the several artists that made this project come to life. Following the theme of death, the album includes various posthumous features, including contributions from Bobby Womack, Johnny Marr, Tony Allen, and more. These are all talents that have collaborated with Gorillaz on previous works, so it seems more than fitting to pay tribute to them in this manner. The first song and title track The Mountain, brings a fresh introduction to the album. Led by stunning sitar, this track brims with energy and life, prepping listeners for the inevitable reflective rollercoaster this album takes us on. The following track The Moon Cave brings listeners back to a sound fans are all too familiar with. Backboned by the beautiful vocals by Asha Puthli, Albarn brings back the electro disco music vibe that I once craved from Gorillaz. It wouldn’t be a Gorillaz album without a touch of political satire, exhibited brilliantly in The Happy Dictator, God of Lying, and Plastic Guru. These songs battle with political performativity, deception and ego, success and fame, all framed as part of a journey of self-reflection and acceptance, rejecting the commander of our actions. 

Gorillaz backs these songs with familiar sounds heard in previous iterations, bringing back nostalgic tunes reminiscent of Plastic Beach, this time led by strong sitar strings from Anoushka Shankar, foregrounding the central theme of spirituality and rebirth. Nods and references to other artists are littered throughout the album, however one stands out amongst the rest. “Goodnight, sweet prince”, a somber line spoken by Horatio during Hamlet’s final moments, makes an appearance in the second last track, The Sweet Prince. Like the play, this song is less about the fear of death but more about guidance in passing, reflecting on Albarn’s own experience with his father’s death. The last song brings us into the perspective of our creator, now mourning for what his creation has become. Black Thought delivers on awesome rapping throughout the song, with Albarn returning one last time: “You closed your eyes in paradise”.

When listening to The Mountain, I could not help but find myself with eyes closed engulfed in the music. Although I’m largely unfamiliar with the sitar, the strings work beautifully in this album to support such immense vocals. This is not a perfect album, but then again, what is the perfect album? It does what it intends to, taking listeners on a reflective journey through fifteen tracks and a Disney-esque animated short. The experience comes full circle when you realize that only the first and last songs are in D major. The Mountain did not change my life, but it moved me. It felt like such a refreshing yet nostalgic sound, highlighting the importance for artists to explore distinct sounds but also keep true to their talent. Whether you are a Gorillaz fan or not, I urge you to step into the garden, smoke a little something, relax, close your eyes and listen to The Mountain; one listener to another, you won’t regret it.

Featured Image: Genius

By Ashley Zhou

Antigone, one of Sophocles’ three Theban Plays, has been widely modernised and adapted, ripely complex in its interplay of personal grief and political struggle set within a fractured nation. For instance, The National Theatre’s 2012 production and Kamila Shamsie’s novel Home Fire relocate the war-torn Thebes to post 9/11 Britain, acutely interrogating traitorship during the sensationalised racism of the “War On Terror”. Antigone follows the titular character’s attempt to ceremoniously bury her brother’s body against the decree of King Creon, and the subsequent series of tragic deaths following his refusal to bend arbitrary laws. 

Inside the Assembly Rooms, the Greek city is transformed into a repurposed British cotton factory. A ‘Thebes Mill Ltd.’ sign hangs from the fly loft: a prop highlighting the 1950s Burnley industrial landscape of which director Estelle Pollard-Cox (assisted by Jess Cloake) and producer Nat Pryke (assisted by Jamie Duncan and Tom Milnes) set their production. The creative team emphasise the intentional incorporation of some of their actors’ own regional Northern accents on top of adopted Lancashire accents, expanding the characters’ struggle outwards of Burnley and onto the wider political context of the North. The dialect fully grounds the Greek tale in Britain, exemplified in the scene-stealing Leon Perry-Masey’s (Soldier/Messenger) offhand ‘localised-like, innit?’. 

Crippled under political-economic fracturing following the Second World War, industrial struggle is clear in the cumulative ensemble of DUCT’s production, managed by Lucy Smith (assisted by Cameron Howe), stage managed by Matilda Bell and deputy stage managed by Leon Ansorg (assisted by Erin Bullen). Theo Henman’s set design sees windows filmy with grime; crates, boxes, and barrels which actors interact with freely; and steel bars which line raised decking. Leyla Aysan’s lighting design supports this seamlessly as white light filters through from “outside” and casts stark window-grill shadows on the floor. Oli Fitzgerald’s sound design has piano music blending into industrial-adjacent trap beats, scoring scene transitions with an assertion of tonal confidence in the play’s modernity. My favourite touch is a line of Union-Jack bunting strewn across the steel, hinting at a sort of conservative celebratory nationalism that Creon clings to as the British Empire continues its collapse, threatened (according to him) by greed and espionage: ‘Who paid? How much? What purpose?’.

It’s hard to tear your eyes away from Jasper Hinds’ Creon. As much as the character insists upon his manhood, Hinds imbues the king with a nuanced vulnerability as his eyes flit between believable questioning and shuttered conviction. Progressively frazzled in orientation and costume, he ends the play in a boylike state, face glossy with tears in the light. As Antigone suggests that nationhood is conflated with the individual patriarch, the production’s Burnley sits similarly young and broken by the ghost of old ways. This is particularly poignant when he faces his son, Harry Robinson’s Haemon, who meets his anguish head-on. Here, Henman and Aysan collaborate on an exciting set piece that I’m inclined not to spoil, but is unbelievably effective. 

Playing the titular Antigone, Pearl D’Souza exudes agonised grit; in her grief and feeling, words struggle past her set jaw. ‘Do you understand!’ she yells at us as she’s martyred. Her teeth chatter with rage. Once gone, her onstage presence is dearly missed. The same can be said about Isobel Willis as Ismene. Directly opposing her sister, Willis expertly embodies Ismene with a stiff back, her entire body curling inwards. The strain of siblinghood is felt in their arguments, as is the absence of the dead. 

Aaliyah Angir maintains a constant presence, kept between two worlds as she leads a, notably, all female-presenting chorus and advises Creon over his shoulder. To portray women as Theban Elders – usually ‘older men of the establishment’ as Robert Coleman notes – invites an element of gender trouble, messing with their implicit neutrality. Roles are metatheatrically blurred even as Creon insists on their fixity. Angir plays with this expertly, vocally disagreeing with Creon and quietly showing Antigone support. As Creon rages, Angir’s mouth curls at the audience, her eyes shining with approval. Shrouded in darkness as the spotlighted Creon speaks, she unties Antigone’s bound hands and the two share a quiet moment, only vaguely intelligible even to the audience. 

The Chorus (Eva Tozzi, Milly Hale, Sophie Browning, and Willis) are the production’s lifeblood, an amalgam of perfectly pitched performances, excellent blocking, and effective costuming by Uli Haaurhaus. They don crimson cloths which they draw over their head when silent, little acts of self-burial that litter their narration. They freeze like statues, refusing to be stared at. They mostly speak one at a time, underscoring their isolation. Delivering the truth of Creon’s stubborn folly, Nefertari Williams’ Tiresias is instantly compelling, her entrance shifting the energy of the play. Her voice carries a stormy musicality, every line delivered with the flow of intense roiling waves. Dressed in a blood-coloured robe with a dark red blindfold over her eyes – a Haaurhaus touch that implicitly aligns the seer with the play’s women – every word believably lives beyond him. Destruction is distant to the out-of-touch ruler despite being starkly experienced by everyone surrounding him – that is, until the bitter end of his family. 

Antigone stands tall in death while Creon falls to his knees. Laws remain collapsible; power and patriarchy remain dangerous corrupting forces, as pervasive as in Sophocles’ time. Aristotle believed in the cleansing power of katharsis and as I rise to join the standing ovation, a little lighter, I’m inclined to agree.

Featured Image: DUCT

By Edward Clark

feeble little horse are the outlier. Not only possessing one of the greatest band names maybe ever, nothing else sounds quite like them. Their newest album pushes this musical boat out even further. Crunch and distortion are balanced by shimmering vocals and enchanting melodies, transforming bitknot into a sonic kaleidoscope.

The first album without founding guitarist Ryan Walchonski, bitknot wears the band’s new three-piece structure on its sleeve, exchanging cascading guitar melodies for more synthesisers and more chaotic post-production. This instrumental decision is mirrored in every layer of feeble’s branding – check out their website or the series of eleven music videos made for each song on the album. A digicore aesthetic is inseparable from the band’s identity. On their two previous full-length releases, Girl with Fish and Hayday, the blend of this experimental production with lo-fi rock and pop cemented feeble as a band blurring genres to produce something wholly unique. But, with bitknot, feeble little horse has broken the boundaries of genre altogether. I don’t know what genre the album is, and it seems like the band aren’t sure either. They are label-less. Lead vocalist Lydia Slocum used to call feeble a ‘noise pop band’, but now they just call themselves ‘a band from Pittsburgh’. 

Chipmunked vocals, heavily distorted guitar lines, and digital synthesisers support Slocum’s gentle delivery. The end result is a twenty-five minute album which shifts seamlessly from intense drone to twinkling melodies. bitknot makes up for the short runtime through a tight structure where no song outstays its welcome. Catchy, sub-two-minute tracks such as Paris or Poison are made up of snappy hooks, repeated a few times and sometimes connected by a bridge. The pace is quick and the album varied. Slocum’s vocals are so delicate, so hypnotic, that they provide a necessary balance to in-house-producer and multi-instrumentalist Sebastian Kinsler’s heavy mixing. The sheer detail in each song’s instrumental makes bitknot sound very muddy through most speakers. Through headphones, however, this detail is what makes the album so addictive. Guitar riffs, droning chords, and intense percussion which verges on blast beat, are supported by digital twinkles, glitches, and abrasive noise. 

Like many of the band’s hyperpop contemporaries – Nanajirachi or 100 gecs, for example – bitknot is a response to everyday reliance on technology, both sonically and lyrically. Digital dissonance is weaponised to emphasise Slocum’s lyrical frustration with consumerism, capitalism, and their ever-prevalence in the modern day. ‘She’s in my feed, I need her clothes, I need her hair’, she sings on Shopping over a repeated deep guitar riff. Her criticism is implicit and her vocal nonchalance a deliberate subversion of the maximalist instrumental. The final track, DMT, stands for ‘Death, Money, Taxes’. Slocum’s previously gentle vocals build to a scream in the album’s final moments, bitknot’s passive anger building to its concluding crescendo. But the listener doesn’t get the release, and bitknot loops back to its opening track Doorway, an intense introduction into bitknot’s digital hypnosis. 

Some listeners have started to categorize feeble little horse as a part of a new genre coined “Laptop Twee”, a rewiring of indie pop with a Y2K aesthetic. We can keep trying to fit new artists into a box, but maybe we should let feeble little horse be who they say they are: ‘a band from Pittsburgh’.

Featured Image: Genius

By Mwambu Haimbe

“Haply, for I am black and have not those softer parts of conversation that chamberers have…”

Throughout my GCSEs (all the way in 2022, can you believe it) I extensively read over this passage of Othello’s monologue in Act 3 Scene 3, after Iago has sown the seeds of jealousy that would eventually lead to Othello’s decline and ultimately his demise. 

By no means the most quoted line of the play, this line is important to me because it speaks to something that is glossed over quite a bit in everyday readings of Othello: his own struggle with internalised racism. It is this understated struggle that made me grow fond of Othello even beyond my study, and it has been my life’s dream to see a performance of it that brings this and many other hidden themes of Othello’s subtext to the fore. 

Having that in mind, it is safe to say that the new juggernaut in Durham Student Theatre, Roots Theatre Company, has satisfied that life’s dream beyond my wildest comprehension. Directors Bea Pescott-Khan and Aaliyah Angir, assisted by Zara Khan, have done what many directors much more senior to them have seemingly failed to do, which is balance the obvious racial commentary of Othello with its stark commentaries about the various ways in which race and social class intermesh. 

This framing is particularly significant today, in a world where race and class have been exploited by bad-faith actors in politics and media to divide the world into tribal camps pitted to destroy one another. Pescott-Khan, Angir and Khan have taken an age old classic and, through precise staging, reserved yet conscious set design and intuitive blocking, transformed it into a masterpiece of social commentary that William Shakespeare himself would certainly watch enviously. 

A great example of this intuitive direction certainly has to be the clear directorial decision to have Ollie Painter’s Iago speak in two different accents to mark his devilish asides and his false persona of nicety he puts on to his superiors. Through Iago’s mischief, we see the absurdity of the noble classes and how easily their love of appearances brings about their undoing. 

This is most evident in Iago’s manipulation of Micheal Cassio. Iago understands that Cassio’s reputation matters to him most. By sullying his reputation, Cassio becomes a tool for Iago’s use, incapable of realising that the man he asks for help in restoring his standing with Othello is the same man actively seeking to destroy him. 

There are many other directorial choices like this that demonstrate a clear vision and understanding of Othello’s themes as well as an understanding of where Othello fits in our modern eye. However, none of the directors’ keen vision could have been possible without the exemplary work of a cast and crew deserving of mountainous amounts of praise, therefore I must give credit to the performances before I hark on too greatly about the directing. 

For me, the glue of this production is surely Dan Katsande as Othello. He is mighty and  magnanimous when he first comes on stage as the brave ‘Moor’ General greatly renowned in Venice, until he is sympathetic and vulnerable as the lowly cuckold, self-pitying as he bears his soul out due to what he believes is a mortal wound from his lover. Katsande becomes unhinged and manic, fully embracing the beastly cuckold and the horrid Moor that he believes he has become, before doing the unthinkable to the woman he had risked his office and reputation for just a few short acts before. 

It is a terrifyingly good performance – one where he commands his body to act before a line is spoken and, when the line is spoken, the audience are captivated all the more by his grand delivery, reminding them that Othello is a man of great power and poise. Katsande’s shrieks of pain and manic ramblings make us sympathise with Othello almost by force, we are shocked by his horrible treatment of Desdemona (played by Liv Fancourt), yet our hearts break watching this once great general become something more akin to an animal than a man – which Katsande delivers perfectly in the latter half of the play by lowering his shoulders and prowling around Desdemona when he speaks. Although at times he runs the risk of over-acting, particularly in scenes where he is howling in pain at Desdemona’s apparent betrayal, he grounds the performance, commanding the stage with his presence, physicality and booming voice.

A performance like Katsande’s is difficult to match, but Ollie Painter’s devilishly charismatic portrayal of Iago is certainly up to the task. Painter does something seemingly impossible in this show: he almost makes Iago likeable. Speaking directly to the audience in a crisp Cockney accent, Painter moves naturally in his dialogue, making them laugh through sheer charisma. He mocks and jeers at the posh, unexposed Roderigo, played by Sam Garratt, completely unaware that Iago is scamming him. The joke is every other posh, ignorant character onstage, the comic is the whip-smart, perceptive Iago and the audience to this stand-up is us. It is brilliant. 

There is a real venom and contempt in Painter’s line delivery. We really do believe that he detests Othello. It is an organic performance that comes from a place of clear understanding of the character. Iago’s struggle is one of class: Iago represents the disenfranchised working classes who feel betrayed, who feel as though despite their hard work they have either been pushed aside by unqualified aristocratic nobles (Michael Cassio) or racial minorities given access to empowerment schemes (Othello). Through his accent, Painter characterises this clearly to the audience. Iago is not like the others, therefore Iago is evil. 

The performances on display in this production facilitated the subtext that the directors intended for it. In what I refuse to accept was a debut performance, Amaya Uppal as Emilia delivered a masterclass on how to enhance the performance of others, and deliver one’s own performance just as spectacularly. Uppal was quietly disobedient to Iago, yet disobedient enough to irritate him, sowing seeds for her eventual end. She gives Fancourt’s Desdemona space to be overcome by woe and anguish, and she stands toe to toe with Katsande to create pulpable tension. Yet, where she is left to shine in her own moments, she is passionate, forceful, and fearless, delivering an exceptional debut worthy of praise. 

It speaks to the quality of a production’s cast if in a review it takes this long for the name “Cillian Knowles” to appear. Exceptional as always and effortlessly comedic, Knowles somehow turns Cassio into a Shakespearian character that feels like he was written by Wilde. In Knowles’s Cassio we see the absurdity of nobility come to the fore through his absurdly sweet prim and proper boy scout routine with Desdemona. So absurd and sweet is this boy scout façade that Iago can’t help but to use it to bring about the downfall of Othello and Desdemona’s lives. When he is not sickeningly charming, Knowles is delivering an extremely funny drunken, slurring Cassio that does not feel drawn out. Knowles is endearing, even when he is spewing misogyny directed at Bianca, and loveable and far too good at being Michael Cassio. 

Stepping away from the acting for just one second (I have plenty more to say), every detail of this production weaves together in a dance full of chemistry. Leyla Aysan and Molly Winchurst are no slouches in the lighting department, as they bathed the stage in fantastic midnight blue that holds a dark brooding atmosphere over this tragedy, only deviating from this colour scheme in the few moments of levity in the show or when using spotlights to showcase key moments in the show’s sequence. Aysan and Winchurst also teamed up nicely with movement director Robyn Bradbury, as all the moments of physicality, such as the hypnotic party sequence, were complimented deliciously by superb lighting. The fight scenes were also well choreographed – at times a little too well choreographed as you could see the fiction behind them – but so long as the performers remained safe, I was willing to suspend my disbelief. 

Special mention must be given to the sound of this production. Music cues between scene changes is standard in student theatre, but rarely does it ever match the story being told on stage and the theatre company itself. Emilia Edwards and Shaan Thomas made use of the songs they selected between scenes, as if you paid close enough attention to the lyrics, they reflected the action and the intensity as the story progressed. However, I do wish the ingenuity of sound could have been used to aid some of the performers, who at times struggled with their voice projection and lost some details to the ceiling of the Assembly Rooms. 

Back to the quality of performance in this show: I would be a hack reviewer if I did not mention the one and only Liv Fancourt. If I had a pound for every time Fancourt has stunned me to silence with her performances I can safely say I would be a very rich man indeed. In my personal opinion, I have always had a dislike of Desdemona as a character, primarily because Shakespeare uses her as a plot device – the innocent white girl corrupted and murdered by the uncontrollable black beast. In other iterations of Othello Desdemona is this faultless character used to highlight the faults of Othello, but not here. Fancourt gives Desdemona life. She is quirky and quick witted when she speaks with Iago after arriving in Cyprus, sarcastic with a doting Michael Cassio and even slightly resilient, when she refuses to let Iago see her in tears after Othello has just thrown her to the floor and called her a whore. There is strength in Fancourt’s Desdemona, a strength that is created by the love Othello has for her. When she feels Othello’s love wain, her own strength wains, which makes her death that more impactful. Fancourt makes Desdemona’s death matter more because she is not just a plot device. She is a person who Othello betrays by not trusting her loyalty yet she dies still loving him – an aspect of her performance furthered by the incredible chemistry between herself and Katsande. It is a performance that someone like Fancourt can make you think is easy to deliver yet so many before her have not been able to crack it. 

As I wind down this review, the more perceptive amongst you would have noticed I have not mentioned Sam Garratt (Roderigo), Becca Morran (Bianca and others), Ross Killian (Brabantio and others), Nia Keogh-Peters (First Senator and others), Nerfertari Williams (Gratiano and others) and Jasper Hinds (Lodovico and others) and I have reasons for that. These performers were absolutely incredible when given time. For example, Garratt embodied Roderigo with such perfection and accuracy I was overjoyed whenever he came on stage, and Killian’s Brabantio was vile in all the best ways, showing a real understanding of the character’s purpose to the story. All the members of the ensemble pieced this story together perfectly, however, I feel that they were all hard done by both the nature of this play and the director’s visions. The overwhelming feeling I had when watching Othello was that Roots had an obvious and large chip on their shoulders. For their first production as a newly established theatre company, tackling such a well-known and heavy play is a very risky bit of business, and that means your cast has no choice but to deliver. The cast did, in fact, deliver but it felt like the director’s had concentrated a vast amount of energy into the main cast, leaving the supporting and ensemble cast very little creative direction to work with. This hurt in particular Keogh-Peters and Williams who I believe are talents that any production would fight tooth and nail to have in their cast. If you do not believe me go and read the reviews of the DDF show Poetry Club. They are immense and I wanted, in fact this production needed, to have the two of them on stage a lot more with a lot more in terms of lines and time to work with. If I can level any criticism against this production it is that: not fully using all the amazing talent at their disposal and never fully removing their hand from the handbrake. 

Overall, Roots delivered a version of Othello that I wish I could see over and over again. The directing choices were for the most part informed, precise, and deeply aware of Othello’s greater narrative. The story Roots delivered blended elements of class and race issues in a way that was brave and long overdue, especially in a place like Durham. My only hope for Roots is that they lean into these themes more heavily and fully utilise all the talent at their disposal. However, all things withstanding, this juggernaut of a theatre company is destined for many great things to come and I cannot wait to see what else they deliver. Adieu!

Featured Image: Roots Theatre Company

By Freyja Hollington

The Durham Opera Ensemble attain brilliance and professionalism in their masterful production of Will Todd’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The technical promise of the performance is anticipated in the thrill of the exposed orchestral accompaniment, which gradually breathes music into the theatre. The strength of the band is matched by the performers themselves, as the whole assembly weaves an intricate tapestry of symbiotic sound, with voice and string and brass raising goosebumps and thrilling audiences. 

The transformative work of the production team is foundational to the success of the performance. There is an intricacy of thought and detail which brings Wonderland to life, as towering flowers, playing-card-mushrooms and suspended butterflies spill over the stage and into the audience. In a particularly enchanting detail, book-pages cascade from the ceiling to mimic our heroine’s tumble down the rabbit hole. Such a self-conscious reverence for storytelling works as a constant thread throughout. The backdrop is transformed into a large storybook, whose pages are turned by the discrete ministration of the Stage Management team – Leon Ansorg, Aoife Bowles, Lily Beetles, Izzy Richards and Isabelle Owen – effecting a series of act breaks like the turning of a chapter. A very warm congratulations is due to Co-Set-Designers Libby Simpson and Eva Ryan for such visionary detail, and to the talented Set Production Team who realised their dream: Sarah Richardson, Veritas Dubik and Becky Hale. Included in their applause must also be the artful management of lighting, delivered excellently by Lighting Designer Zac Jackson and Lighting Operator Val Devereux, without whose technical contribution the brilliance of the set would have lost lustre. 

Such sensory delights are intensified by the accompaniment of the band, whose talented ministrations make the production breathe. The score is itself a delicate medley of classical and jazz, with the conventional operatic sections achieving haunting levels of tension that are brilliantly offset by the funkiness of blues. Such moments of musical summit are especially delivered through the success of the Cello, played by Tom Shaxson, and the Drum Kit, mastered by Isaac Short, and their gravity is balanced in the perfect airiness of Keys, played by Patrick Owen, and the Tuned and Auxiliary Percussion, delivered by Dan Hume. The Violins, provided by Cameron Davies and Katherine Iveson Vandy, and the Viola, played by Charlie Lineker, give body to the score, assisted by the strength of the wind instruments of Flute, by Emma Phipps, Alto Sax, by Annie Sullivan Qosja, Trumpet, by Leo Vernaglione, and Trombone, by Thomas Pennington-Arnold. In the playfulness of the Accordion, played by Sam Caskie, the intensity of the ensemble becomes grounded in childhood wonder, innate to the nostalgia of Wonderland. The band are themselves a united body, working in oneness to enthral and ensnare, and this is a credit to the success of Conductor Zac Smith. 

When the cast of performers joins the enchantments of the stage, the magic is complete. Every voice compels attention and emotion, and the power of projection is astounding. The opening scene is a particular showcase for the extraordinary talent of Maia Harris Lindop, starring in the dual role of Mum and Mad Hatter, and her co-star Ash Marshall as Dad and Queen of Hearts. In the ironically dysfunctional domestics of the real world, Olivia McClintock and Eleanor Barnes provide skilled hilarity in the comedic relief of the Two Brats, and as their dreamed mirrors Tweedledum and Tweedledee. In his role as the White Rabbit, Sammy Jarvis is sensational, bringing the world of Wonderland to life with a voice that is almost transportive. Nonsensical and psychedelic, the delivery of the Cheshire Cat by Francessca Fitton elevates this dream-realm, with Fitton’s mastery of physicality and facial expression matched in power by her strength of voice. 

Amongst the chaos, the chorus provide lucidity of narrative, as the figures of Daphne, Scarlett, Velma, Norbert and Fredrick give interludes of exposition and cogence that guides audiences through absurdity; excellently sung by Isabelle Bruce, Mathilda Ketterer, Izzy Cochrane, Ben Glover and Joe Wilson. Likewise, the exceptional talent of Kiera Barrett delivers brilliantly the guiding roles of Bottle and Duchess, with Barrett’s voice promising the potential of aria, and yet seamlessly blended with the community of the wider cast. The Caterpillar, performed by Fred Walmsley, intensifies the elements of jazz included in the production, in a clever adaptation of the traditionally intoxicated bug reflected in Walmsley’s play with voice. The tea-party retinue offer similar moments of hilarity, as the Dormouse played by Hannah Mayes and the March Hare performed by Matthew Dodd become comical victims of the Mad Hatter. In his secondary character as the White Knight, Dodd offers striking moments of physical hilarity whilst maintaining skilful control of voice.  In the starring role, Eleanor Brown shines. Brown lavishes audiences with exquisite song, expressive and controlled. Alice is especially alive in the heights of the musical score, where Brown’s clear and bell-like soprano most excels. Though undeniably accompanied by the brilliance of the wider cast, the sustained excellence of the lead is to be commended, and in every scene Brown attracts the focus of the performance. Delivering Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with exceptional success, the Durham Opera Ensemble outdo themselves, performing with a calibre and talent far beyond the expectations of an amateur company – they have achieved magic on stage.

Featured Image – Durham Opera Ensemble

By Nicole Ruf

They want the culture, not the immigrant. 

They will stream the music, push it up the charts, but never protect the bodies that make it. They want rhythm without remittance, spectacle without the subject, pieces of our culture in their country, but not us. 

Lest we forget: America is not a country, America is a continent. Maybe two, depending on who draws the map. 

Benito says it plainly: together, we are America. His claim is not new, either; José Martí wrote Nuestra America over a century ago, Silvio Rodríguez then played it on his guitar, Residente now repeats it in stadiums. The argument always: the continent does not stand under a single flag. 

El Gran Tazón (The Super Bowl) has long served as liturgy to U.S nationalism: corporate excess baptised in red, white, and blue. Historically, a space both white and anglophone. To step onto that stage in Spanish, to dembow, under floodlights usually reserved for ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, is no accident nor mere aesthetic choice; it is intervention, and it is political. 

It is a claim to stolen land, exploited land, land worked, plowed, and nurtured by migrant hands. It unfolds at a moment when immigration is once again framed as invasion. Eduardo Galeano knew to warn us that the North depended upon the extraction of the South; silver, sugar, oil, labour. Our veins remain open. Now the mining is cultural: reguetón everywhere, streams and ticket sales and halftime show; the rhythm circulates freely, the people do not. The irony should not be lost on us: one Latin body is welcomed onto the most-watched stage in the country, others detained and deported. 

Bad Bunny’s show unfolds in constant motion, shifting from song to song, and scene to scene, transitions far from arbitrary. His setlist is deliberate architecture, each song laid carefully in constructing a history: 

LA MuDANZA (the move) 

The show opens with movement; salsa and colour. Why translate ourselves when we express everything perfectly in our own tongue? From the first strum it is clear this performance is not asking to be understood, it is demanding to be witnessed. 

We are engulfed by sugarcane and suddenly we are somewhere humid, somewhere worked. It feels García Marquezian; Macondo in a NFL area, a place both marginal and mythical. Latin America has always occupied that paradox: peripheral in geopolitics, indispensable to global imagination. They want all the magic, and none of the realism. 

The stage feels like a stifling tropical summer, and the sweat on worker’s brows. Heat is aesthetic, but it is also historical.

 Tití Me Preguntó (Tití asked me) 

Benito appears, dressed in Zara; not couture, not luxury. An accessible brand, found in the fluorescent aisles of shopping centres across continents, and a Spanish-owned one at that. His value does not depend on elite approval. 

It is Latin America’s economy on full display. Behind this moment sit the tienditas: street food vendors, liquor shops, nail salons; that “informal labour”, migrant labour, that sits at the backbone of the U.S economy. 

Yo Perreo Sola (I dance alone) 

The casita is decorated with Latin icons; Karol G, Pedro Pascal, Jesica Alba, Cardi B, all your favourites in one place, all of them Latin. Look how far we can come, all that we can build. To see ourselves centre stage, is to shift the frame, and the power. 

Perreo, it turns out, can also be political; to move the body and occupy space. Latina women flood the stage; frizzy hair and thick thighs, real, sexy. Not diluted or softened, not assimilated into something palatable. They are bodies I recognise. To see them like this, desired and desirable, self-possessed, does something tender, it feels like being seen. 

“Las mujeres en el mundo entero, perreando sin miedo” (women across the world, dancing without fear). In a country where women’s bodies are legislated, to dance like this is to reclaim sovereignty.

Safaera (chaos; or the moment during a party where things tip over into it) 

This is this generation’s Gasolina, it saw us through adolescent parties and coming-of-age. We all know the lyrics, I know because I mouth them as I watch, and the stadium shouts them back. It had to make the setlist, and we are glad it did, even those of us who think ourselves feminists (sure, the lyrics are questionable). But that, too, is part of it. Culture is not curated for moral purity, it is contradictory, chaotic if you will, but it unifies us with its chaos. 

VOY A LLeVARTE PA PR (I’m going to take you to PR) 

If anything, Benito has been taking us to Puerto Rico since the show began. I watch from my kitchen before a morning lecture, ten thousand kilometers from home, and yet, suddenly, I am there. He falls into a living room: a family gathered around a television. It feels familiar, recursive. We watch them watch him, and in doing so, watch ourselves. 

His jersey reads Ocasio, Benito knows where he comes from. Tego Calderon, Don Omar, Daddy Yankee; the patriarchs. He names his lineage. “Están escuchando música de Puerto Rico, de los barrios y los caseríos” 

(you’re listening to music from Puerto Rico, from the hoods and the villages) 

EoO (literally: on occasion, or a cue given before a beat drops) 

And then the dembow; the body understands even before the mind. If there is one thing Latinos know how to do, it is move (there is a joke there I will leave for you to find). 

MONACO 

“Buenas tardes CalifoLnia, mi nombre es Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio” 

(Good afternoon, California. My name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) 

The intentional use of a full name, the stereotype spoken out loud, and then a reminder: “Y si hoy estoy aquí en el Super Bowl 60 es porque nunca dejé de creer en mí. Tú también deberías de creer en ti, vales más de lo que piensas, créeme” 

(And if I’m here at the 60th Super Bowl today, it’s because I never stopped believing in myself. You should believe in yourself too, you’re worth more than you think. Trust me.) 

He breaks the fourth wall, for an instant the performance recedes, and the man remains. 

The American Dream has been sold as: work hard, rise alone, transcend your origin story, and you may succeed, you may belong. 

Die With A Smile 

What follows is a display of belonging as Latinos conceptualise it. A (real) wedding ceremony on the halftime stage, the knot tied between a Latina and an American. They kiss, and like a kiss on the Berlin Wall, their marriage is a symbol of the collapse of borders. Intimacy where rhetoric insists on separation. A kiss for peace. 

Lady Gaga is no coincidence either; a globally famous English-speaking singer with a globally famous English-language song enters a Latin space. Anyone is welcome at a Latin wedding. You dance alongside the family. The tías (aunts) dance cumbia, the tíos (uncles) are already drunk, the children asleep in makeshift beds between chairs. Benito also dances with her. 

BAILE INoLVIDABLE (unforgettable dance) 

To us, these dances are almost forgettable, precisely because they are so ordinary. We dance at weddings, and in kitchens, and on streets, and everywhere. But ordinariness becomes radical when movement is policed, to dance without fear is no small demand, and yet Benito urges us: “Baila sin miedo, ama sin miedo” (dance without fear, love without fear). 

NUEVAYoL 

The stage obeys, they dance. It is theatrical, a musical number refracted through diasporic memory: perhaps West Side Story, perhaps In The Heights. The American Dream feels staged within reach. 

A tribute unfolds: Willy Colon, Frida Kahlo, those trumpets! Toñita, named in the song, now standing there, in front of him, hands him a shot, and “PR se siente cerquita” (PR feels so close). 

 Benito hands over his Grammy; it belongs to us all, to those who listen, to the children watching at home who look up to him, to his inner child too, perhaps, and to all those children who are now living in fear. 

LO QUE LE PASÓ A HAWAii (what happened to Hawaii) 

“Quieren al barrio mío y que tus hijos se vayan” (they want my neighbourhood, and for your children to leave). That Ricky Martin sings this matters, a voice our mothers grew up with, a Puerto Rican idol shaped by American industry and polished for export. He opened a door in the 90s, when ‘Latin explosion’ meant temporary fascination. Benito does not ask for fascination. He now walks all the way through that door and closes it; we no longer need subtitling.

El Apagón (the blackout) 

Electric poles and risky jobs; infrastructure turned symbol. What keeps the States united: building, repairing, cleaning, maintaining. The blackout is no metaphor. Puerto Rico knows this too well; a colony left waiting for power to be restored, political and electrical. 

Immigration in the United States is not a crisis of numbers, but a crisis of ethics. Migrants sustain the nation’s infrastructure while being systematically denied its protections. 

Benito holds his flag, and his country, high. He climbs upwards, and at the top, a lyric cuts through everything: “Ahora todos quieren ser latinos, pero les falta sazón, batería y reguetón” (Now everyone wants to be Latino, but they lack seasoning, battery/drums, and reguetón) 

And then, a targeted warning: “Cuidao con mi corillo, que somo’ un montón” (careful with my crew, there’s a whole lot of us). 

CAFé CON RON (coffee and rum) 

The first few notes and something stirs, my soles itch. I want the dim light of a club, voices hoarse, someone’s arm heavy over my shoulder. I want the bitter coffee my father brews in the mornings, and the rum and coke poured generously before we step out into the night. Ours has always been a culture of effort and enjoyment in the same breath. 

Flags rise from every corner of the stage, and something tightens in my chest; pride, anger, homesickness, then pride again. Everything converges now; the flags, the songs, the story, the way we do, inevitably, even scattered across continents. 

“God bless America.” He says, and names it properly: 

Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador, Brasil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Panamá, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, México, Cuba, República Dominicana, Jamaica, Haití, Las Antillas, United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico 

He does not abbreviate, so neither will I. 

DtMF (I should have taken more photos) 

He ends with the song everyone knows, even los gringos, and feelings just as familiar. Not a naive plea for unity, but rather something of a challenge: togetherness requires seeing and being seeing. 

They jump, shout, laugh, sing, because despite detention centres, policy debates, headlines, we are excessive with life, and joy, and above all, we are most certainly, loud. 

Power is rarely threatened by silence. It is not coincidental that the performance drew criticism from certain political figures, whose careers are built on policing borders, territorial and epistemic. But sound refuses containment. 

Sound travels, and apparently it crosses borders. Latin America has always been an act of sonic resistance. 

The only thing stronger than hate is love.

Featured Image: Kathryn Riley / Getty

By David Bayne-Jardine

The milestone musical Grease is a tough one to take on, but this raucous classic seemed light work in the hands of DULOG, Durham’s renowned student musical theatre company. With Michael Nevin and Sarah Johnston in the directors’ chairs, this highly anticipated production lived up to expectations, paying homage to the original film in all its riotous and camp glory. Some very minor hiccups did not detract from this rip-roaring testimony to both the talent of Durham’s student population and the exceptionally high standard of DULOG’s productions. 

Kitted out in leather jackets and slicked-back hairdos, the directors’ vision for this play was clear from the get-go: to present 1980s adolescence in all its absurdity and glamour, both mocking and paying tribute to the iconic hierarchy of popularity that governed high-school life. Jocks, nerds and belles-of-the-ball leant into their stereotypes with a campness that was hysterical and almost never overdone. 

Nowhere was this more the case than in Max Hildred’s portrayal of Danny, who was suave to the point of hilarity. Hildred’s character glided across the stage with that Travolta-esque fluency, as if every movement were a step in some ongoing dance. His knowing winks to the crowd and obsessive hair grooming perfectly captured the ridiculousness of the musical’s protagonist without compromising his undeniable sense of charm. 

All of Grease’s lead roles were brilliant, and backed by an equally impressive ensemble, whose mastery of complex choreography and harmonies left little to be desired. Every chorus member merged seamlessly into the ensemble yet maintained enough individuality to be memorable in their own right. In general, it must be said that the musical side of this production was immensely impressive – there were no points at which the cast lost control of the harmony, and the orchestra was synced with the action on stage to a professional level. From the opening number, the ensemble had the audience sat bolt-upright in their seats with their high-energy, high-calibre choreography. It was abundantly clear that every member of the cast was loving their time on stage. 

In the words of the directors, the goal of DULOG’s Grease was also to capture the intensity of teenage life – both ‘the highs and the heartbreaks’. The latter was certainly achieved through some heart-wrenching solo numbers. Mathilda Ketterer as Sandy gave a powerful rendition of ‘Hopelessly Devoted To You’ (a notoriously tricky number), and Talia Tobias’ ‘There Are Worst Things I Could Do’ was nothing short of knock-out.

Indeed, there are many contenders for the star of this show. Despite playing a relatively minor character, Celine Delahaye brought abundant life, hilarity and colour to the stage in every one of Miss Lynch’s scenes. Equally, a word must be said for Lucy Rogers, who played the ever loveable and brilliantly dorky Jan. Whilst some cast members risked over-acting at points, Rogers hit the nail on the head, gathering the most audience laughs by a mile but never over-egging the pudding. Rogers was a delight to watch on stage from start to finish. 

However, the real star of DULOG’s Grease would have to be Jobe Hart, who played Danny’s sidekick Kenickie. His solo number ‘Greased Lightning’ was the highlight of the production, perfecting the raucous and infectious energy that makes the track one of the musical’s most iconic numbers. It is not easy to make the overly macho, hip-thrusting choreography of Grease look natural or convincing, yet Hart pulled it off with fluency and ease. When he wasn’t showing off some brilliant dance moves, he was commanding the stage with a confidence and zeal that brought Kenickie to life. Hart’s character was at once intimidating and loveable – a nuanced portrayal that shows a young actor truly in his element. It is only fair to note that there were a few persistent issues with sound in the play. Misadjusted microphone volumes meant that certain characters were more audible than others, which led to some dialogue being obscured or lost. The highly anticipated kiss between Sandy and Danny was also slightly undermined by their mics making contact and picking up each other’s breathing. Nevertheless, none of this detracted significantly from the production. From start to finish Grease was an absolute riot; a testimony to the hard-work and talent of the whole team that put together such a challenging production. Wonderfully camp, entirely absurd and often rather touching, DULOG’s Grease had groove and it certainly had meaning.

Featured Image: DULOG

By Jacob Cordery

That was the most beautifully delicate film I have ever seen. I do not really know how to put into words how I feel about that film. The beginning was slow and I was afraid to eat my popcorn. It was so quiet, and I am quite loud. God bless the casting agent – Buckley and Mescal gave two of the best performances I have ever seen grace a screen. The rawness, the pain – I am sure I have never felt such pain. The cinematography alone was wonderful, the coupling of silent and perfectly still wide shots with shaky and personal and painful close-ups brought us into an England that doesn’t exist anymore. We saw the colours of Spring, we saw the black of death, and the red that exists in between those two things. The carefully crafted narrative, and the lack of focus on the work of Shakespeare, was phenomenal. We see him as absent, frustrating, and at times aggressive. We are with Agnes wholly until the play and then, like her, we are united once again – we see Shakespeare’s grief on stage. And we get to stare into the eyes of a mother losing her child once again. And suddenly everything I knew about Hamlet is unwritten, everything I thought I understood of the play, nay, the world, is undone. I once wrote in an essay that Hamlet is “a passive canvas on which the world around paints”. I think I still agree – but for a different reason. Hamlet is our grief, Hamnet is theirs. In the film the child chooses to give his life for his sister’s. The viewer is put in the position of death – we gaze at the boy, who gazes back at us – perhaps mirroring the idea that Hamlet is aware that he is merely playing a part in a play. Hamnet never got to live, but his parents refuse to believe he is gone, or in heaven. William wonders where he is: Anne sees only nothing. Death is presented as inevitable – Shakespeare’s mother lost three girls, and Anne has a vision of dying surrounded by two of her children. We know death must come, as we do in Hamlet, we just hope it will not. Regardless, death is projected onto Hamnet and Hamlet alike. We see the illness shake Hamnet, paralleled in Claudius’ writhing as he drinks his poison. We see Agnes’ pain, her shocking pain, watching her child die once more on stage. It is almost too much to bear. Shakespeare, who, as he states at the beginning of the film, struggles to put feelings into words, redeems himself for being the absentee father – or perhaps, he at least finds a way to show his wife his own grief, his own pain. I will be shocked and outraged if Jessie Buckley does not win an Oscar – she truly suspended my disbelief. Like in Hamlet, we hope that little sweet child who sacrifices himself will not die. We pray to a God we don’t believe in; we bury our head in popcorn; we cover our eyes with tears. But the boy dies and in his final moments, he is cradled: Hamnet by his mother, Hamlet by the audience, and we, in the cinema, are left alive, but alone. We almost feel envy, for one who is truly loved. I was waiting for Horatio’s famous last couple of lines, but we did not need to be told ‘Goodnight, my sweet prince’ for we saw the farewell. Some things are better felt than said.

Featured Image: Focus Features

By Ollie Cochran

Even if you have never heard of the Durham Revue, you most likely have heard from them. Modern-day British comedy has an odd habit of churning out, ad nauseam, future stars from a single sketch comedy troupe in the North East. Ed Gamble, Nish Kumar, and Stevie Martin – all ex-Taskmaster contestants, yes, but also esteemed alumni of the Revue. Add in Jeremy Vine and Ambika Mod for a smattering of extra sweetness, and you have yourself a tasty dessert made entirely of successful comedians, whipped up by Durham’s premier sketch troupe. 

Founded in 1974, the Revue have put together a troupe of writer/performers for the last 52 years that form a tight-knit group, developing and finetuning sketch material throughout the year before a month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. A place in the troupe is hard to come by: they operate an annual three-round audition process, assessing not only candidates’ skill at performing comedy, but also writing it. And with only seven or eight troupe members every year – and only five or six of them as performers – it is an illustrious gig within the student theatre scene. 

It was with all this in mind that I headed to the Collingwood Arts Centre on Sunday the 18th January to catch the Revue’s first show of the year: A Day at the Durham ReZoo. Co-president duo Samuel Bentley and Jude Battersby open the show to sinister music, recounting the aftermath of their Fringe run last year: critical acclaim (the troupe’s Derek Award on full display), but a bank balance that suggests otherwise. The solution? The troupe are now working as part-time zookeepers to get some extra cash. Makes sense.

Cue the introductions. Bentley and Battersby return alongside Alice Barr and Nat Pryke, joined on stage by newcomers Ollie Painter, Miranda Pharaoh and Bea Pescott-Khan, with Isaac Slater joining Pryke as a writer. In typical Revue style, they introduce themselves one-by-one, displaying a touch of their individual comedic styles, before Battersby rousingly instructs us to give them a big round of applause after every sketch, whether they “deserve it or not”. Before the sketches even begin, I am struck by the troupe’s rapport; for their first show, they seem immensely comfortable together, and the humorous asides and awkward interjections are a testament to their tight-knit quality. 

And the sketches are no different. Battersby and Bentley have electrifying chemistry, the former’s energetic facial expressions and command of physical comedy complementing the latter’s supremely dry wit and fantastic control of comic timing. This was on full display in one of the night’s standout sketches – a humorous take on ‘Noah’s Ark’ which provides several laugh-out-loud moments from the duo’s antithetical dynamic before the gag even lands. Together they also parody the randomness of the term “knee-slapper” in a sketch full of dad jokes that pits homoeroticism against maternal resurrection.  

Likewise, in a sketch that satirises drama teachers taking a school production all too seriously, Bentley pairs well with Painter. The production in question: Beckett’s classic Waiting for Godot – here, performed by their Year 3 class. It is a sketch that drives forward with its joke from the beginning, each comment funnier than the next. Painter, throughout the evening, is fantastic with his naturalistic approach, his delivery uncompromisingly measured to extract full comedic punch. 

Alice Barr has some excellent intensity throughout and great diction – her lively characters in ‘Parakeet’ and ‘Gender Reveal Party’ are among the highlights of sketches where the gags don’t always land. Her best moment of the night is in the ‘Ides of March’ sketch where Caesar and his (ex)comrades are transposed into the modern world on a ‘girlies’ night; Barr’s commitment and characterisation are sustained brilliantly. Pharaoh is equally good here as Brutus, delivering one of the central one-liners, “You know you’re my ride… or die”, fabulously. 

Indeed, Pharaoh establishes herself as a talented performer – balancing sombre, dry delivery with self-aware wit. She is part of some of the evening’s more experimental sketches, exhibiting a masterful command of awkward humour in a meta sketch where she gets stage fright and messes up her line as she sits in a hot tub and in a particularly peculiar anti-joke vignette involving a glass of milkshake (or is it Gaviscon?). 

Bea Pescott-Khan has some similarly memorable moments: as prisoner 24602 in a Les Miserablés parody that delighted the theatre-loving audience, she is fabulously quippy and utterly deadpan, ensuring that the momentum of the joke resounds throughout; whilst in one of the evening’s simplest, but best sketches involving a forgetful goldfish instructor, her wit is razor-sharp – a notable gag despite its brevity. 

Some other highlights include Battersby dropping a rhyming Lin-Manuel Miranda – (malfunctioning) fake goatee and all – into the Chernobyl disaster and letting the cultural mismatch deal the comedic punches, and a succinct homophonic gag involving not ‘Mock the Week’ but ‘Mock the Weak’. 

Still, it doesn’t all work. Painter’s deliberate, faux-sincere delivery of a sermon whilst chomping down on corn doesn’t quite land (though his corpsing does provide some entertainment – it is as if he feels as silly as he looks), nor does a sketch involving a doctor’s checkup where the patient has soiled himself, a premise that outstays its welcome long before the punchline does. At times, diction falters, even in the contained venue; the impact of sketches involving wordplay or quick delivery, therefore, is diminished. 

On the whole, many of the sketches are just too long – though, I concede, it is best to trial their material in this context before some of the upcoming shows. But look, as a first show, this is an immense achievement for the new troupe. (A special mention, of course, must go to Pryke and Slater for their writing achievements, despite not being featured on stage.) The Revue are clearly veering off in new directions this year, developing sketches in the realm of the absurd or abstract – eager to diverge some of their material from their orthodox gags. 

“Last year, at Edinburgh, we maybe got a bit of criticism for playing some of our comedy a little bit safe,” remarks Bentley, chatting to me after the show. “I think we wanted to include stuff here that started working towards a creativity that appealed to that kind of comedy-going crowd that you see in Edinburgh.” I agree with him. But for student sketch comedy, especially, the question of creative risk is nowadays inseparable from the financial realities of getting work seen.

The climate of student sketch comedy at the moment is a tense one – with the cost of living meaning that month-long stints at Edinburgh are becoming harder and harder to fund. Just last year, the Revue had to fundraise £7000 to afford their Fringe run, a number that was achievable partly thanks to generous alumni donations. For groups without such a rich history, the financial shortfall is impossible to overcome. 

This is precisely why it is so important to go and support these groups. Sketch comedy remains a unique space where student voices can be rough, ambitious, and occasionally wrong, but also unique and utterly original. Go and support it; you won’t regret it. 

The Durham Revue are performing ComedyFest at the Gala Theatre on Saturday 7  February 2026, alongside The Oxford Revue and Leeds Tealights. Tickets are available here.  

Featured Image: The Durham Revue