Reviews

Beyoncé needs no introduction. Her very name inspires sheer inspiration amongst everyone. And just when we needed her the most, she returned and shook the whole world to its core. Act One of Renaissance certainly sets the tone for the album – a revival and rebirth of ballroom music of the 70s and 80s combined […]

Bolu Babalola had me hooked with Love in Colour in 2020, a beautiful anthology of love stories and she came back in 2022 with a fun romantic novel that I pre-ordered the first chance I could get. Honey & Spice revolves around Kiki and Malakai, two students at Whitehall university, a fictional British university. Kiki […]

Former Disney star Sabrina Carpenter dropped her highly-anticipated fifth studio album, emails i can’t send, earlier this month –  and it’s arguably her best (and most personal) work yet. Carpenter began her career as a child star, with her breakthrough role on Girl Meets World catapulting her into the limelight. The pop princess is no stranger to […]

Graham Norton’s debut novel Holding attracted significant media attention and glowing reviews. Most likely because Graham Norton of The Graham Norton Show wrote a fiction crime novel. Presumably most reviewers would have liked to slate it for some kind of self-gratifying purpose. I hate it when celebrities get book deals. Half of them can’t write; it’s never usually because […]

When Charlotte Brontë called her sister Anne’s book The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a “mistake” and prevented it from being published for ten years, I do think she was being rather severe. Anne Brontë’s second novel is not the masterpiece Jane Eyre is or Wuthering Heights. I am hesitant to call it a masterpiece at all, but there are […]

Daisy Jones and The Six is the story of fictional musicians in the seventies. And I very much recommend this book to anyone in a slump or wanting to procrastinate before exams (like me!) Written in interview snippets we, learn the ups and downs, the good and bad of how the band was formed. There […]

For many, The Troubles in Ireland and their peak in the 1960s remain unknown and unspoken. The atrocities committed by the British in border counties like Fermanagh, Derry and cities like Belfast still affect Irish society today; with areas separated by ‘peace walls’ between Protestant and Catholic communities to prohibit further tensions. Despite the Good […]

Prince’s debut album, For You, gets overlooked as it doesn’t have the progressive rock and synth-pop fusion his later works have, like Purple Rain, or 1999. However, at 19, Prince engineered this entire album on his own and demonstrated his immense musical talents from the start. The titular song on the album, For You, kicks […]

Mhairi McFarlane’s 2020 novel If I Never Met You has been on my ‘to be read‘ list for a while – and I am so happy that I finally got around to it. The story revolves around thirty-six-year-old Laurie. She’s a lawyer, one of the best at her firm. Her partner, Dan, dumps her after […]

Dearest readers, welcome back. Bridgerton series two is out now and if you’re anything like me, you’ll have spent eight hours in bed binge-watching before allowing it to consume your being. (Ha, see what I did there…) If you didn’t do that – worry not, there’s plenty to look forward to. And plenty to think […]

I love a good Netflix documentary – true crime is a guilty pleasure and this one will have you yelling at the screen. The Tinder Swindler tells the story of Shimon Hayut, who used the name, Simon Leviev, a conman who seduced women on Tinder and conned them out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. […]

On the 14th of January, Netflix released Ricky Gervais’ much anticipated third season of After Life. With the first two seasons of After Life becoming extremely popular among Netflix users, does season three live up to the hype surrounding its release? Featuring six new episodes, After Life continues to explore Ricky Gervais’ Tony Johnson as he […]

A Monster Calls is one of the most renowned books of the 21st century. Patrick Ness, its author and flame-carrier, is just as renowned. There is a reason for that. A Monster Calls is one of the most moving, brilliantly executed, and informative novels I’ve read in a while. I’m possibly too old to be considered the target […]

The Color Purple feels strange to write in American English. It would feel somehow wrong and a disservice to such a touching, thoughtful, and pure novel to add that “u” into the title, though. So, I won’t. Alice Walker’s writing is uniquely American, in the same way that Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird carries that […]

The long-awaited third instalment of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy, No Way Home, has exceeded all expectations. Starring alongside Holland is Zendaya, Jacob Batalon and Benedict Cumberbatch, with Marvel allowing audiences to fall further in love with their favourite characters. No Way Home follows on from the 2019 release Far From Home, in which villain Mysterio reveals Spider-Man’s […]

Finally, gigs and live music are back. After eighteen months of closures and concerts delayed, rescheduled or cancelled altogether, the excitement to be in a sweaty room filled with people shoving and mosh-pitting was real. And Orla Gartland at Riverside Newcastle did not disappoint. Recommended Reading: Will theatre survive the pandemic? Touring her first album […]

After two top tier seasons of the hit Netflix series Sex Education, it was predictably going to be tricky to live up to the hype. The worry that the show wouldn’t be able to replicate the success of earlier seasons dissipated quickly. Season three, despite displaying notably darker undertones at points, maintains the charm of […]

Such A Fun Age is Kiley Reid’s debut novel and she comes out swinging with this fantastic piece of writing. The story focuses on Emira, a nanny for a wealthy family. She’s a young black woman whose life is turned upside down when she is accosted by a security guard in a grocery shop, assuming […]

It can’t be denied that The White Lotus has become somewhat of a word-of-mouth phenomenon in the last month. Binge-watching the six-episode first series was incredibly tempting, but I managed to space it out over a few days. This proved to be an asset as it allowed me to have many a spoiler-free discussion with […]

This week, Marvel released the seventh episode of their first animated series What If, starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, and Tom Hiddleston. The show explored the possibility of Thor’s life as an only child, as if Loki and he are unrelated. At the beginning of the episode, we see Thor crash land on […]

Marvel Studios’ What If returned again this week with yet another alternate event. Its previous three episodes covered Peggy Carter taking up the mantle of Captain Carter, T’Challa exploring the galaxy as Star-Lord and the earth without its mightiest heroes. Episode four stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Rachel McAdams, Tilda Swinton, and Benedict Wong, following Stephen Strange’s car […]

Country idol Dolly Parton has announced that she is writing her first novel. Parton will team up with novelist James Patterson, for her debut named Run, Rose, Run. There will also be a 12-track album based on the characters and plots in the book with lyrics even featuring in Run, Rose, Run. At the centre […]

Marvel’s most recent series What If provides alternate realities for various scenarios across the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So far, the series has revealed the possibilities of Peggy Carter becoming Captain Carter, as well as T’Challa battling across the galaxy as Star-Lord. This episode stars Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Clark Gregg, […]

Marvel’s What If…? provides alternative outcomes of events from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series so far has covered Peggy Carter becoming Captain Carter, rather than the creation of Captain America. This second instalment stars the late Chadwick Boseman, Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, and Benicio Del Toro. This episode follows T’Challa as Star Lord (instead […]

This Disney Plus original series follows a modern take on the many possible outcomes of various Marvel Cinematic Universe scenarios, answering the ultimate question what if…? Starting Hayley Atwell, Josh Keaton, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper, and Stanley Tucci, the first addition of this long awaited series re-tells the story of Captain America: The First Avenger. […]

The final season for showrunner Russell T Davies and the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant. Series Four is arguably the most acclaimed, iconic, and beloved season of television the show has ever produced. So loved was this era that five special episodes were produced throughout 2009 to pay tribute to their final days. All these episodes […]

Bo Burnham is in many ways a perfect figure to usher in this new wave of pandemic performance art. He is a figure of millennial endeavour, being a musical comedian who got his start on YouTube over a decade ago. One of the original internet content creators, a type of job spearheaded by this generation, […]

 Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé. This book was an unexpected buy, but the premise of the book had me hooked. A Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars-type thriller but with two black leads who are LGBTQ? Sign me up! In fact, the plot is so much more than I could’ve hoped for. I can see […]

The Handmaid’s Tale is currently airing its fourth series on Channel 4. The Emmy award-winning show first aired in 2017 and has hooked audiences since. Based on the classic book by Margaret Atwood, the show looks at a dystopian, theocratic America, now called Gilead, where fertile women are forced to become ‘handmaids’ – to carry […]

If series one was the season that got me into Doctor Who, series three is what made me love it. Some of the episodes here genuinely changed my life. The Tenth Doctors stories become darker, more inventive and more entertaining as he is pushed to new extremes. Does it still hold up? Let’s find out. […]

The most recent addition to the renowned Marvel Cinematic Universe is the 2021 Black Widow film, which certainly does not divert from the extremely high expectation that comes with each instalment of anything associated with Marvel. Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz star in the film that follows the hit Captain America: […]

When Doctor Who returned in 2005, it needed a huge opening statement to stamp its mark on television. And that it did. With Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper leading the travels, Series One has stood the test of time. Series One is notable for its restrained, buttoned-down, working class approach. This puts character and interaction […]

Many North East legends have travelled far and wide to make an impact. Many of them leave and do great things. But the one who stayed and has done the greatest is, of course, Sam Fender, who returned this evening with a new single Seventeen Going Under. This is the lead, eponymous new track from […]

If you ask me, there is one film you need to see as cinemas return. Not because the film is good (which it is – very), but it marks a fantastic return to the art of filmmaking and the medium of cinema that we’ve been starved of for so long. I’m talking of course about […]

Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library was a Sunday Times number one bestseller. Why? For the life of me, I cannot fathom it. That’s personally, though. If I look at the general state of the world and publishing as it is, I can totally see why. The Midnight Library is essentially a mix of everything this society has come to superficially […]

Marina’s recently released fifth studio album continues to carefully craft her unique aesthetic and explores her growth not only as an artist, but as a woman. With a more mature take on her traditional eclectic electro-pop, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land is an intoxicating mix of emotionally charged bops and ballads. The titular track […]

If you’ve ever seen murder mysteries, you’ll know how easily they can become tiresome and overdone, but Kate Winslet’s thrilling performance in the HBO programme Mare of Easttown is quite the opposite. With Winslet’s character Mare battling her trauma and solving missing people and murder cases (whether she is still assigned to the cases or […]

If you’ve ever watched a Marvel film, you will know that each one is beyond entertaining and will result in you feeling fully engaged in every character due to the intriguing events in which they have just heroically encountered. The 2021 Disney Plus series of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier certainly does not bypass […]

Something about Netflix’s latest thriller addition, The Woman in the Window, adapted from the novel of the same name by AJ Finn, makes me wonder whether a conflict between two filmmakers was at the heart of this film’s production. Such is the mismatched and muddled style of what it is I’m watching that it came as […]

Comprised of four members Wilbur Soot, Joe Goldsmith, Ash Kabosu, and Mark Boardman, Lovejoy is a brand new British indie band that debuted earlier this month. So far, they have released a four-track EP called Are you Alright?, though the band have stated that they are working to release a full album this summer, which […]