Review – The Orbital

The Failures of Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein

25Jan

By Isobel CarnochanNo Comments

Culture, Film & TV, Literature

The Failures of Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein

By Isobel Carnochan, Senior Culture Editor Content Warnings: Death and killing Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been one of my favourite books since I was a young teenager. To me, Frankenstein is literature at its peak: it has gorgeous prose, a compelling narrative, and is topped with intricately complicated themes and moral wonderings. Naturally, I was ecstatic when I learnt that a new adaptation was being made for Netflix. But, after watching it, I was nothing short of disappointed. Del Toro’s adaptation removed all of Shelley’s luscious nuance and complexity in favour of spoon-fed, vapid moral messaging (a character literally tells Victor “you’re the real monster”, just in case we hadn’t picked up on that already) and outdated gender norms. In the end, all this new adaptation amou...

Born With Teeth: Education at the Theatre

5Jan

By Ruby DayNo Comments

Culture, Theatre & Performance

Born With Teeth: Education at the Theatre

By Ruby Day, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Some experiences are electric. Watching legendary playwrights Christopher ‘Kit’ Marlowe and William Shakespeare prowl around, pine for, and pounce on one another is undeniably worthy of such categorisation. Running for a limited 11-week season on the West End (13th August to 1st November 2025), Liz Duffy Adams’ Born With Teeth combines historical fact, scholarly speculation, and poetic license into an exceptional play that stands testament to the idea that a night at the theatre can be just as educational as attending a lecture. I admit, I was principally drawn to this production because of the undeniable crush I have on Edward Bluemel, who takes up the role of Shakespeare alongside his forcefully dynamic co-star, Ncuti Gatwa’s Marlowe. Attending ...

4Dec

By Aspen IronsideNo Comments

Culture

Edie Sedgwick: Redefining the Muse

By Aspen Ironside, Staff Writer Recently, I watched the 2006 film Factory Girl – a biopic about Edie Sedgwick that followsher move from California to New York, and subsequent status as one of Andy Warhol’smuses (aka ‘superstars’). Previously, I was only vaguely familiar with Edie Sedgwick,usually through the form of referential make-up worn by models in Vogue. But uponwatching Factory Girl, I found myself totally enamoured by her, and wanted to learn moreabout her life. This experience made me question why some people are so naturally magneticto us as human beings. Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick represent what one typically imagines an artist-muserelationship to be. The muse (Sedgwick) quickly becomes the subject of many works ofart–for Warhol that was often films–and becomes synonym...

Brooding, Gothic, and Celestial: Ethel Cain Live in London

13Oct

By Jess SmithNo Comments

Culture

Brooding, Gothic, and Celestial: Ethel Cain Live in London

By Jessica L. Smith, Senior Opinion Editor To say that attending an Ethel Cain concert is a religious experience seems cliché. Cain, or, to use her real name Hayden Anhedönia, has constructed a musical career under the pseudonym of a character facing religious trauma, questions of faith and a loss of innocence. It would be ludicrous for Anhedönia’s live shows not to feel sacred. There’s something celestial about a congregation of concertgoers, wearing a multitude of camouflage, white vintage dresses, and rosaries that align with Anhedönia’s carefully curated aesthetic, who are simply honoured to be in her presence. Anhedönia’s stint of five shows at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo brings the anticipated ‘The Willoughby Tucker Forever Tour’ to London. After the success of Anhedöni...

16Nov

By Daniel PepinNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature, Theatre & Performance

Bag Salad and Box Office

By Daniel Pepin Do you like contemporary fiction? The kind of fiction that makes you squirm? Boundary pushing, unsettling, compulsive, a little bit sexy? Then chances are you have read or at least heard of Boy Parts by Eliza Clark – if you have not then please do so, for the above reasons. Clark’s debut novel was an instant cult classic, epitomising the manic and obsessive world of the internet era – criticising and dissecting modern gender conflict, classism, and performative art. The razor blade sharp book follows Irina, a Northern fetish photographer as she humiliates and captures explicit photos of young men and boys while surviving off a heady mix of coke, ket, Tesco bag salad, and La Mer. The playbook opens with ‘this is the story as Irina tells it. She is an artist, a monster, a...

14Jun

By Felix PoréeNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature, Opinion

How Did Life End Up With Us?

By Felix Poreé and Olivia Taylor Introduced as the first book of a quartet titled "The Secrets of Life: From Big Bang to Trump", SS O'Connor's How Did Life End Up With Us? presents itself as an attempt to answer the most pertinent of questions surrounding the laws of life, from the start of the Big Bang all the way to the ‘decisions’ that organisms make that ultimately determine their chances of survival. One anticipates that such questions would require substantial scientific research, and although O’Connor admits he is not a scientist, his undertaking, given to the reader in a conversational writing style, is divided into specific chapters that aim to cover such topics as natural selection, gene mutations, and evolutionary change, down to parasitism, mutualism, and altruism. O’Con...

24Apr

By Olivia TaylorNo Comments

Culture

Hopeless Romantic by Dolly Alderton

I have held myself back from discussing Dolly Alderton for quite some time now. I first read her debut memoir Everything I Know About Love three years ago, during lockdown, and I have not shut up about it since. I’ll admit, her fictional debut, Ghosts, did not impress me as much; I quickly realised it was her confessional tone that caught my attention, hence why her autobiographical work and her ‘Dear Dolly’ advice column have left such a lasting impression. Since reading Everything I Know About Love, I have continued to stay up to date with her work, but I only recently found an essay she wrote for The Pound Project in 2018 titled ‘Hopeless Romantic’. The Pound Project is an independent publishing company founded by JP Watson. Their message is to shout about ‘the value of readin...

<strong><em>Will you go on the record? </em>How ‘She Said’ reminds us of the sad realities of Hollywood. </strong>

1Mar

By Daisy ClarksonNo Comments

Culture

Will you go on the record? How ‘She Said’ reminds us of the sad realities of Hollywood.

Released five years after the original article from The New York Times was published, ‘She Said’ tells the story of the two journalists who uncovered the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault scandal. Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey are played by Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan respectively, yet the film also includes actresses who were victims of Weinstein including Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd, who play/voice themselves. The film itself is subtle, yet the statement it makes is bold. By criticising the very industry that it has been created in, the film sets out to confront the industry professionals who will be watching this film – many of whom will have worked with Weinstein, maybe even defended him. ‘She Said’ does not glamorise Hollywood or the media industry – it does the opposite.&...

A Love Letter to Four Weddings and a Funeral

13Dec

By Madelaine GrayNo Comments

Culture

A Love Letter to Four Weddings and a Funeral

A romance film where the romance is incidental. I watched Four Weddings and a Funeral for the first time relatively recently. I was expecting another Notting Hill–and indeed, there are parallels and similarities, in that Richard Curtis directs while Hugh Grant attempts to win the affections of a seemingly-out-of-his-league American, accompanied by a zany, tight-knit group of friends. Four Weddings, however, is a different film entirely, and quickly became one of my favourites. Four Weddings stands apart from the usual romcom genre in my mind for many reasons–not least because the romance that the film ostensibly follows is one of the least interesting aspects. It seems almost cliched now to reject Charles and Carrie’s central love story. After all, in the era of “hot takes”, it’s be...

21Jun

By Leah EdwardsNo Comments

Lifestyle

Vintage Kitchen: Victorian Sorbet

Now that it’s summer, the weather is warmer, and the daylight hours are longer, it made sense to wrap this series up with an iconic treat that we all associate with the season. BBC Radio 4’s podcast, You’re Dead To Me, did an episode exploring the history of ice-cream. The podcast mentioned horrifying 18th century flavours from whale vomit to ‘out there’ ones such as parmesan and artichoke. Towards the end of the podcast, food historian Dr Annie Gray described a recipe from the Queen of Ices: Agnes Marshall (1855-1905). Agnes Marshall was a pioneer of ice cream and frozen desserts, using liquid nitrogen to freeze ice creams, long before the invention of the modern freezer. In 1885 she came out with the patent freezer which could freeze a pint of ice cream in five minutes and is considered...