Friday, March 29Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

Tag: interview

Debrief: Polly Goddard
Features

Debrief: Polly Goddard

I had the pleasure to visit Polly in her family home in Fleet where she lives with her parents, younger brother and grandmother. Polly kindly met me at the station and walked me to her house. We chatted about school, how our days had been so far and engaged in some general chit chat as we approached her house. Her room, decorated with a sweet plum purple paint, is lined with strings of polaroids containing images of family and friends. She sits on her patchwork covered sofa next to her desk, very neatly arranged with all the stationary a young academic could need. We start by discussing her initial diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She recounts getting ill and the doctors originally thinking that she had tonsilitis. It was in fact her mum that persisted in saying “this isn’t Po...
Emily Wilding Davison Building Officially Declared Open
Features

Emily Wilding Davison Building Officially Declared Open

On Wednesday 18 October, the Emily Wilding Davison was officially opened by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Chancellor of the University of London, Princess Anne. The building was closed to students between 9am and 4:30pm on that day to allow for the Princess’ tour and speech to be given. The building was worked on for nearly two years, with almost 3000 people working on the construction of the building to get it to what it is today. The library contains more than 400,000 books and over 1000 study spaces for student use. It offers other services, such as the Union Shop, the Santander Bank, the Student Services Centre, the Careers & Employability Centre and the Exhibition Space for interests in art and culture. The opening was a remarkable event, with many students head...
Coffee House Sessions: April Keen
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...
Coffee House Sessions: Mark Sullivan
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...
The Carnabys
Culture & Literature, Music

The Carnabys

Ruby Rogers chatted to indie rock band The Carnabys after their gig at the Students' Union. “Do we think that Jack could fit into your skinny tights?” asks Ben Gittins, guitar player of up and coming indie rock band The Carnabys. We never did find out the answer (maybe next time?) but I quickly realised that my pre-interview nerves were almost totally unwarranted. Chatting to Ben and lead singer Jack Mercer after the gig felt more like chatting to your significantly cooler mates at the pub, mates who’ve toured with Blondie (“Yeah, you’d just sit down and have a bit of soup with Debbie [Harry]”) and played gigs at the Roundhouse. Playing at the Students’ Union as part of the tour for their debut album ‘Too Much Never Enough’ on Saturday 5th November was the third time I had seen T...
Life as a Disabled Student
Features

Life as a Disabled Student

I spoke to Grace Bilney, a third-year history student at Royal Holloway who suffers from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, or ME. Grace was first struck by the chronic illness, often confusingly associated with the milder Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, in 2009, after a bout of glandular fever. What started as intense knee pain soon became something far more serious, but despite the severity of her symptoms it took a full three years before a formal diagnosis was made. Since then, she has managed to complete secondary school, the notoriously difficult International Baccalaureate, and, despite a great deal of uncertainty originally, complete two years of study at her dream university. She is always keen to discuss the illness that continues to dominate much of her everyday life, with a passionate ...
Interview: Gun Threat in the USA
Features

Interview: Gun Threat in the USA

Katherine Gorman spent a term studying History at Royal Holloway during her Junior year of college in the USA. Last month her college was closed after parents informed the administration that their son, Jacob, retrieved a gun from their home and went missing. In light of the previous major gun incident in America that led to threats being made against the University of Edinburgh, Beth Carr spoke to her about her situation and the steps taken by the college leadership. (Photo: Katherine outside the college, credit: Katherine Gorman) TIMELINE OF EVENTS November 16th 5:30am- Texts and emails were sent to students, faculty, staff and parents informing students of the suspension of classes due to the threat. The gunman’s identity was revealed shortly afterwards. 7am- College was closed w...
‘Pole to Paris’: the 15,000km journey for climate change
Features

‘Pole to Paris’: the 15,000km journey for climate change

Meet 'Pole to Paris': the team running and cycling 15,000km to talk about climate change. ‘Pole to Paris’ is a public awareness campaign that revolves around the travels of a group of environmental scientists from the Polar Regions to Paris; together they will cover 15,000km either running or by bike. Along the way the team stop in various locations to give talks about global warming and the scientific research that has been carried out to analyse the Earth’s increasing temperature, all to increase understanding of the ways in which our planet is currently being affected, ahead of COP21 (the conference scheduled in Paris regarding climate change). (more…)
Interview with Director of MTS
Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

Interview with Director of MTS

I caught up with MTS director Kathryn Pickering and spoke with her about the Into the Woods Performance and its production, and why being involved in MTS is such an excitement. Why did you decide to get involved in MTS? – is it because of the course you did or because it is just something you love to do? It is something I love to do (although I do study drama and music). When I started I had to make a decision about whether to continue in drama society or MTS, I chose MTS as I had been cast in their performance of A Little Shop of Horrors, however I wonder how different my university life would have been if I had continued with another society. Was there someone who inspired you to get into theatre? Sounds silly but not particularly. I always wanted to do it (performing), I...
The DUFF- An interview with Bella Thorne
Culture & Literature, Film & TV

The DUFF- An interview with Bella Thorne

On first hearing the premise for The DUFF (which stands for Designated Ugly Fat Friend), you might be skeptical. After all, who wants to watch a film that, on first impression, boxes people up into stereotypical categories and judges their value based on their appearance? However, you must be careful not to be guilty of the same with this film. We follow Bianca, the so-called DUFF, as she discovers that she is the “friendly approachable one” guys talk to in order to date her “hot” best friends. Outraged by this, Bianca sets out to reverse-DUFF herself, with the help of the school’s most popular jock Wesley. This film is laugh-out-loud funny, with the banter between Bianca and Wesley both cheeky and heart-warming. Mae Whitman (Bianca) brings so many little idiosyncrasies to her characte...