Beth Carr, Author at The Orbital

20Sep

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Learning French with Kimmy Schmidt

When I got a free trial of Netflix, it was because I wanted to finally watch some of the Netflix Original Series and also because you can watch endless episodes of Doctor Who without having to swap the DVDs around. What I didn't expect to gain from Netflix was the ability to learn a language. You may well have heard of a programme called Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It's a very funny comedy series about a woman named Kimmy Schmidt living in New York, with a premise that I won't elaborate on too much because it was a very funny surprise for me. One thing that stands out about the programme is how easy it is to watch. Hours can fly by in the company of Kimmy and her friends and there's good, light-hearted stories that you can easily follow, whether you binge watch a season or dip in and out...

19Sep

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Lifestyle

5 Things to do Before you Graduate

Whether you’re a fresh-faced first year or a weary postgraduate, graduation seems a long way off. However, soon enough, the end of your university career comes around and you wonder where it’s all gone. Here are a few things you MUST do before you disappear into adult life: 1. Walk around the whole of Virginia Water Lake. Within half an hour of campus is Virginia Water Lake, part of Windsor Great Park. Living so close to a great spot of natural beauty, it would be awful to miss out on seeing the whole of the lake - it is 4.5 miles to do the circuit and there’s also a coffee shop where you can reward yourself with a well-earned snack. 2. Try out a society and a sports club. Royal Holloway has over 100 sports and societies, some of which are quite unique. You might hate sports but you ...

Doctor Who’s regenerating – in more ways than one…

21Jul

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Doctor Who’s regenerating – in more ways than one…

The casting of a new Doctor is actually a reflection of the intended audience, writes Beth Carr. Months of speculation and waiting ended at the weekend: not only did Federer win Wimbledon in straight sets but the identity of the next Doctor in Doctor Who was revealed. A hood was dropped and the secret of Jodie Whittaker’s casting was out. You might know her from Broadchurch, working with Doctor Who’s new showrunner Chris Chibnall, or from playing ditsy Beverley in St Trinian’s. She’s also no stranger to sci-fi after starring in 2011 film Attack the Block. Despite this success under her belt, Whittaker’s casting has caused a tsunami of response from both fans and non-fans of the show. The reason? She is a woman taking over a role traditionally and exclusively played by men, a Time Lor...

4Jul

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Losing It: Reshaping Sex Education

CONTENT WARNING: Rape. Beth Carr shines a spotlight on alumna Nina Lemon and her play ‘Losing It’. Watching a musical about sex education isn’t the most usual Friday activity for students, but that is exactly the theme of the latest play by Peer Productions, written and directed by Royal Holloway alumni Nina Lemon. ‘Losing It’ follows a group of school friends as they look back on their seven years at secondary school and the questions they had about sex and relationships, as well as examining what went well and what went wrong in their love lives. The play fits with Peer Productions’ vision “to use theatre to genuinely change young people’s lives” and is being toured around 30 local schools to tell pupils what they really want to know about sex and relationships. It was develop...

7Jun

By Beth CarrNo Comments

News

Final year facts on council tax

Beth Carr explores the practicalities for those who have to pay council tax and what the SU are doing about it. Term is drawing to a close and amongst the pizza menus and estate agent brochures, final year students are receiving another form of unwanted mail: council tax bills. However, unlike your usual junk mail, these bills are serious and they must be paid. What is Council Tax and who has to pay? Council Tax pays for services provided by the council, such as libraries, schools and the emergency services. Every householder has to pay this, and with multiple occupants each person is liable, jointly and severally - this means that they all are responsible for the bill together but are also individually responsible for paying. Full-time students are exempt from payi...

6Jun

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Is audio killing the TV star?

Beth Carr discusses the new Doctor Who spin off content that is for your ears only. ‘Torchwood Series 5 confirmed!’, ‘Billie Piper returns to Doctor Who’ and ‘Fourth Doctor gains new companion’ are just some of the headlines that have graced the websites of TV news providers CultBox and Digital Spy over the last month. Add in a new series on BBC One full of twists and turns and it is enough to make any Doctor Who fan faint with joy - or is it? The headlines, above all, relate to new audio adventures released by Big Finish, a production company which began its life creating audio dramas based on Doctor Who novels while the show was off air in the 1990s. And it seems that, with the rich television content that fans are enjoying now, audio has vastly fallen in favour. Take the anno...

13Mar

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music

Coffee House Sessions: April Keen

Beth Carr catches up with April Keen after her Coffee House Session on 6 February. April Keen brought superbly moving music to Tommy’s Kitchen alongside her guitarist Jesse on the first Monday of February, performing a range of original songs and covers. Her cover of Hey Soul Sister blew me away with its stripped back nature and a melancholy feel. The set was incredibly well crafted and there was a real sense of passion in the movement and energy shown by April on stage. She doesn’t always know what genre her music fits into but it is best described as folk, pop and indie. Her Coffee House set is naturally stripped back but in studio recordings there’s more electronic production, although her chilled vibe remains. Her lyrics are more in the style of Gabrielle Aplin but her melodi...

6Mar

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

The Heartbreak of Molly Hooper

SPOILERS FOR THE LATEST SERIES OF SHERLOCK An opinion on the emotional repercussions of the Sherlock series finale. Sherlock Series Four concluded last month and frankly I wasn’t a fan. One thing that captured my attention was THAT Molly Hooper scene, in which Sherlock is told to make Molly say ‘I love you’ so that the bomb supposedly planted in her kitchen would not blow up and kill her. On the plus side it reflects Sherlock’s emotions: he clearly struggles with the situation. He knows that making Molly say this will hurt her, yet he desperately wants to prevent the irreversible damage of her death. Nevertheless, we have all known about Molly’s love for our protagonist since the show began. Even Sherlock knew that she loved him but never truly confronted this, allowing it to be a...

17Feb

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music

Coffee House Sessions: Mark Sullivan

Beth Carr chats to Mark Sullivan after the first Coffee House Session of the term. Mark Sullivan brought a mellow and mature feel to the first Coffee House after Christmas with what he deems “funky acoustic soul rock”. It has always been his dream to do music full time and I wanted to find out more about how this came about. In early life, Sullivan was surprisingly not into music at all but that all changed after seeing Oasis unplugged on MTV. He obtained a guitar at the age of 14 and soon was choosing to play it over the classic teenage pastime of computer games. He also started to sing but in his own opinion he was bad at it, giving up for a period of time to concentrate on his band. 7 years ago he started singing again properly and has been solo for 3-4 years. However the guitar a...

7Feb

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Music

Coffee House Sessions: Matt Wills

Beth Carr reviews the final Coffee House Session of last term. With November almost over, Matt Wills brought last term’s Coffee House Tour to a close with an edgy acoustic set of original music melded with familiar samples of popular songs such as ‘Hotline Bling’ and ‘No Scrubs’. I asked Matt how he decided to add those tracks into his set: “When I do songs there’s always like a space that I leave like a little space and I’ll throw a random song in, it probably won’t originally fit and it’ll probably be a different key or probably a different vibe but I’ll throw it in”. He prefers sampling to doing indie covers of mainstream songs, and it really works. He got into music from a young age, writing music as an awkward thirteen year-old who wanted to impress a girl through songwritin...