Review – Page 5 of 8

28Mar

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

Dreamgirls: A Dream Come True

Dreamgirls, a brilliant musical that opened in October 2016 at The Savoy Theatre on the West End stars Glee’s Amber Riley and tells the story of a group of African American singers in the 1960s trying to make a name for themselves. I had the opportunity to see Dreamgirls last month at the Savoy theatre and, not having seen the original movie that the show is based on, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I found was an amazing spectacle of bright lights, beautiful costumes and spectacular music, used to tell the story of these young women who struggled to make a name for themselves while having to deal with the societal pressures of beauty and race in the male-dominated world of music. Amber Riley, with her powerful voice, played the role of Effie White, the lead singer of ‘The Dreamet...

23Mar

By Michele TheilNo Comments

Sports & Socs

Raise Up Your Talents

Michele Theil reviews the Raise-And-Give Talent Show, an event raising money for three excellent charities. The Raise-And-Give society’s charity event, aptly named ‘Royal Holloway’s Got Talent’ was hosted in the SU Main Hall and allowed students and parents to see a wide variety of talents and acts. The show aimed to raise money for Action Against Hunger, Meningitis Now and The White Lodge Centre. Action Against Hunger is “a global charity committed to saving the lives of malnourished children in over 40 countries”. Meningitis Now is a global charity that researches for and supports sufferers of Meningitis and The White Lodge Centre is dedicated to “supporting disabled people of all ages”. Each charity supports extremely worthwhile causes that RAG is dedicated to raising money for. T...

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...

31Jan

By Emma HalahanNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

UnScene Festival: A Review

The 10 short pieces that made up Drama Socs UnScene Festival certainly packed a punch. Emma Halahan reviews a night of laughter, tears and tender moments. Ranging from spoken word to a brief improvisation by The Holloway Players, the 2016 UnScene Festival had something for everyone. Original writing at RHUL doesn’t have much of a platform: if you are a drama or creative writing student there are opportunities with the Student Workshop and Musical Theatre Society’s Variations offers the opportunity to write an original musical, although it’s first years only. UnScene plugs this gap in the market by allowing a plethora of original writing styles to gain stage time and I can attest, the results were simply magical. Guided by two wonderful co-hosts, Ellie Cozens and Azan Ahmed, the night pr...

22Dec

By Harry BrownNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Hail, Caesar! Review

The Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! is one of their most hilarious, absurd and grand films yet. What the film lacks in emotional depth is more than made up for in laughs and often stunning spectacle. Taking place in 1950’s Hollywood, the film stars Josh Brolin as Eddie Mannix, the man who makes sure everything at fictional studio Capitol Pictures runs smoothly. His day to day work ranges from trying to rescue rumour-ridden star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) from a kidnapping, to managing the pregnancy of starlet DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson). While the subject matter could treated as a biopic in other hands, the Coen Brothers inject these stories with a silliness often bordering on parody. It is actually this aspect of the historical period’s depiction which is one of the film’s str...

20Dec

By Beth CarrNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Literature

Diary of an Ordinary Woman Reviewed

Background reading for your course can equal enjoyment, writes Beth Carr. In the midst of a reading-heavy degree it can be a struggle to find time and energy to delve into books for leisure, but making an effort to do so can be captivating and refreshing. This is exactly how I felt reading Diary of an Ordinary Woman, a book retrieved from my bookshelf after years of sitting there, since my mum passed it on to me as something I might enjoy. She was certainly not wrong and this is a book I would thoroughly recommend to anyone. Charting one woman's life through the twentieth century, Margaret Forster's novel reproduces extracts from the diaries of Millicent King, dating from 1913 to 1990. At first it was an ideal choice to relate to my course on twentieth century women but my interest s...

5Dec

By Ruby_rogersNo Comments

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...

21Nov

By Susanna clarkNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Theatre & Performance

Never Swim Alone – Review

Image by Sophie Morgan Susanna Clark reviews The Student Workshop's production of Never Swim Alone. The Student Workshop’s production of Never Swim Alone is, simply put, a triumph. Frank (played by Jack Read) and Bill (played by Azan Ahmed) are two adult men who were once childhood friends and maintain a façade of the continuation of this friendship, despite their destructive rivalry. The play is structured as a competition with 13 rounds, each of which is judged by the referee (played by Tabatha Gregg). In each round the men attempt to prove their superiority over each other: whichever man argues his case best is awarded a point by the referee. The points are recorded on a whiteboard in a prime position for all to see: a reminder of the constant struggle amongst men to prove the...