tv – Page 2 of 3 – The Orbital

Medea: a monster, a mother, or a murderer?

13Jun

By Victoria BastableNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV, Literature, Theatre & Performance

Medea: a monster, a mother, or a murderer?

‘A bride of hate to me and death / Tigress, not woman’ (Euripides, Medea) Medea: a monster, a mother, or a murderer? Victoria Bastable reviews her week with By Jove Theatre company and how their ‘Season of Violent Women’ has made her question the dehumanisation of violent women in culture from Ancient Greece to the 21st century. I Googled ‘violent women in art’ and the results were dominated by articles titled ‘Violence Against Women in Art’. To me, this demonstrates how in art we often attempt to distance women from being portrayed as the perpetrators of violence, perhaps because of cultural expectations of the ‘ideal woman’ as either the nurturing mother or passive victim. But what about the violent women who do appear in art and literature? By Jove Theatre Company have been a...

24Mar

By No Comments

Features

Celebrating medical marvels

Medical documentaries are fascinating, informative and wide-reaching, but often toe a fine line between removing taboos around common conditions and reinforcing them. Programmes like 'Embarrassing Bodies' tread this line very carefully, encouraging public discussion around a wide variety of conditions and the removal of any associated embarrassment. There is no denying that increased awareness is a great thing and can only improve public health in general, but there is a danger of insensitively exhibiting patients to capitalise on natural viewer curiosity and provoke repulsion to keep viewing figures high. Being unwell is a stressful time for anybody and handling medical cases with care and delicacy should always take priority over providing entertainment, even if they waive their righ...

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...

6Mar

By Georgia BeithNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV, Literature

Historical Fact or Fiction?

Georgia Beith discusses whether historical fiction should be more accurate. A piece of historical fiction, whether that be in the form of a book or a period drama, is one of life’s ultimate guilty pleasures. And as a student, especially a history student like myself, it’s not the most respectable thing in the world to admit that you like them. They’re riddled with anachronisms and inaccuracies that make a lot of people look down on them but that doesn’t diminish their entertainment factor. Perhaps as someone who studies the past it should bother me that Anne Boleyn probably didn’t consider sleeping with her brother in order to produce a child, or that Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’ wasn’t likely to be heard at medieval jousting tournaments. But it doesn’t, though there are a number of p...

30Jan

By Ruby_rogersNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Doctor Who?

Ruby Rogers discusses the decline of BBC’s ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Sherlock’ “Doctor who?” – the famous question, that has been asked by almost every character on the BBC’s favourite family sci-fi drama, has suddenly gained new meaning for me. I, like many other people my age, remember vividly when the Doctor returned to our screens in 2005, in the form of the leather-jacket-wearing, more-intense-less-eccentric Christopher Eccleston. My brother and I watched it every week without fail for years, and, when it wasn’t on, we’d spend countless hours re-watching previous episodes, playing with my brother’s TARDIS set or running around the garden pretending to be aliens. Then, the question “Doctor who?” was nothing more than a plot device, a question to which the answer was simply ‘the (italics) ...

12Dec

By Laura LawrenceNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Ho Ho Christmas Adverts

Everyone has their favourite thing that they love about Christmas time. There is so much to choose from: the food, the films and the presents! However the thing that finally makes it feel like Christmas for me is the much anticipated Christmas commercials. So here are just a few of my favourites this year: ‘Santa Forgot’ from Alzheimer’s Research UK- Stephen Fry narrates the heartbreaking story of a Santa who has been struck by the currently incurable disease of Alhzehier’s and the little girl who wants to save him from its all too common fate. This could perhaps be the most important advert on our televisions this Christmas. It raises the message of how crucial funding and research is to the disease- and that maybe with it we can make it curable. I urge everyone to watch this advert. J...

4Nov

By Laura LawrenceNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

Stage School Trouble

E4's new structured reality TV drama 'Stage School' has caused a lot of controversy recently. So much so that after its very first episode a petition to have the show taken off air arose online. The argument is that the show is an utter misrepresentation of what stage school is actually like. Orbital spoke to Roho’s very own MTS president Stephen Johnson who felt that, 'E4's Stage School is a false representation of studying at drama school. Not only does it make for appalling TV, but is frankly dangerous to prospective drama school applicants who may be put off applying and for the entertainment industry in general. Performing arts can provide a stage for current important societal and political events. Stage school however, empresses the stereotypical vindictive and venomous behavi...

27Oct

By Georgia BeithNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Review: HBO’s Westworld

Imagine a show set in the near future in a high-tech, ultra-realistic, Wild West themed amusement park populated by artificial beings known simply as ‘hosts’, and visited by guests referred to as ‘the newcomers’ who are free to do as they please. That show is Westworld, HBO’s attempt at filling the hole that will be left when the astronomically successful Game of Thrones finally draws to a close. So, can Westworld succeed in meeting such high expectations? Produced by sci-fi heavyweight JJ Abrams and starring household names such as Anthony Hopkins, the odds look good for Westworld to become HBO’s next big hit. Based on the 1973 film of the same name, directed by Michael Crichton (screenwriter of probably the best known film about a fictional theme park; Jurassic Park), Westworld is cer...

25Jul

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

New Blood: A new concept for BBC One?

I was introduced to New Blood by the Metro, promising a fantastic foray from Anthony Horowitz into the gritty side of London's policing and fraud investigation. Once a friend from the capital mentioned the show and its greatness, I knew I had to 'tune in' and find out for myself. I use 'tune in' in the figurative sense because the first I heard of the show was as a box set on BBC iPlayer, not realising it had a prime time slot on BBC One. The way this works is that the series is made up of three cases, each consisting of two episodes (except the first which has three instalments), and released on a case by case basis. The episodes are also aired weekly over seven weeks on BBC One on Thursday evenings. A strange idea, some might think, considering that the episodes are already available ...

7Jun

By No Comments

News

Alumni Win Big in Award Season

Royal Holloway alumni have been sweeping up the awards during this year’s award season. Georgina Campbell was awarded a BAFTA for best actress on Sunday 10th of May for her role in BBC 3 hard Hitting Drama ‘Murdered By My Boyfriend’, a series based on a true story of domestic abuse. Georgina beat off competition from established actresses Sheridan Smith, Sarah Lancashire and Keeley Hawes who were all nominated for the Leading Actress award. Georgina developed her acting career while studying BA Film Studies at Royal Holloway from 2011-2014, since leaving she has appeared in many well-known dramas including 'Holby City', 'Casualty', 'Doctors' and the ITV drama 'The Ice Cream Girls'. Likewise in early April, Mark strong won the Olivier for the best Actor award for his role in ‘A View fro...