Culture

"Arctic Monkeys' sentiment of local identity is perfectly surmised in the closing track ‘A Certain Romance,’; though it bemoans the towns low fashion and ‘kids who scrap with pool cues in their hands,’ it resolves into a statement of "this is our town, our culture, and we’re owning it."" Greg Halliwell looks back at what the Sheffield quartet's debut album meant to Northern music culture, 15 years' on.

'Everything I told you Came out untrue'

'The clocks cry her name from Outside the door; Their hands are stiff and still.'

'It doesn’t matter how stagnant we feel, The seasons keep on flowing'

In an already unusual term, this 5th Week, giving its name to '5th week blues,' might be more difficult than most. Whether after an...

As Valentine's Day looms, it's not hard to find examples of romantic love. But literature celebrates the expanse of human emotion, so our books editors have picked out two moving illustrations of the other forms love takes.

"It feels almost like an Alice in Wonderland journey of sound – despite the constant growing and shrinking, we still know that we’re down the rabbit hole." Lily Kershaw looks back at André 3000's side of Outkast's 2003 double album, "The Love Below".

"The sanitiser that coated my hands before entering Vintage and Vinyl was sticky. I was conscious of every fingerprint I might leave– a world away from thumbing through endless stacks of records in a pre-COVID world." Shreya Banerjee discusses her lockdown love affair with the LP.

"By putting on Katy Perry or Jessie J, you’re probably not looking for a quasi-religious experience. There’s no need for overly philosophical lyrics or boundary-pushing orchestral accompaniments; rather, you want catchy hooks, relatable lyrics, and, above all else, fun. Jepsen does this all flawlessly." Katie Kirkpatrick advocates for justice for Carly Rae Jepsen

This is a strength of the performance: with a range of experiences of grief explored by a variety of composers and librettists, no one singular experience is presented, but instead the performance looks at the nuances of the emotions of grieving.

"Travelling into The sunset, a new cowboy ready to ride"

"Worlds branch off like capillaries From an oaken aorta"

"Above me, the Milky wheel turns round and round"

Scarlett Colquitt responds to the claim that "women directed films have a softer tone" with an examination of role of female directors in today's film industry.

Schitt’s Creek is a show where the main character talks to her many, many wigs. It is a show which manages to make a...

"You’re not going to get high quality from me today, nor a sophisticated taste. But I’m going to give you the honest truth." .

"The songs that have now been crystallised on 'For the first time' have always existed, and will always exist, in a state of perpetual evolution – they talk to each other, to their own predecessors, and to the rest of the cultural sphere in which they exist."

Magic lends itself well to the online format. It is a play of voices, of witty exchanges and mystifying, unseen events. The audience is called on to construct the setting from their imagination, inspired by the actors and the sound effects, resulting in a final product which is a collaboration between players and listeners.

For the first 17 years of my life, I felt like everything I knew about love I learned from books. Sure, as a self-conscious...

CW: sexual assault, child abuse, suicide, homophobia. 2015 was a great year in the history of musical theatre, possibly the greatest year of this century...