Venue 343

Issue 343.

Editorial

A note from the editor “This has been an issue of especially great art, so a big thank you to all the UEA artists who have sent us their work” -Tom Bedford

Deputy Editor The library is filling up and there are never spaces in the Hive to work. But never fear, there are so many other great places to study or to write your amazing articles for us.

Some of the school buildings have special study rooms that you can use if you want to do work for your course. Or brush up on the TV series you’re covering for us!

Around the lake are plenty of benches, and a few tents which I’m sure you can shelter in if it rains. Use this outdoor peace to finish the book you’re reviewing.

The five Ls are a list of interesting places you can study on campus. One of them is the laundrette. Why not submit a poem about working in the laundrette to our Creative Writing section?

The LCR is always a good place to study. You spend so much time queuing for drinks or waiting for your friends to finish in the loos, that could be spent reviewing the gig you just saw.

I need to stop writing, I can hear someone banging on the cubicle door. Good luck writing, guys!

It’s that time of year again. Halloween is over, fireworks night has been and gone, and we’re definitely moving into the more wintery, drearier side of autumn.

But don’t worry, because week seven is here, and that means one thing and one thing only: reading week. For some, it’s the perfect excuse to go out every night, rather than just the standard Tuesday and Saturday. For others, it’s a great opportunity to catch up on the reading you haven’t quite managed to get around to yet. Normally, it’s a little bit of both.

Here at Venue, we’ve got some great suggestions for whiling away the hours you’d normally be spending in your lectures and seminars. Have a look at our fashion section to find out the best ways to wear glitter. Perfect for Tuesday LCR, especially when you don’t have to get up for your Wednesday 9am.

If it’s a new TV series you’re looking for, on page 15 we give you a little taste of what you can expect from Stranger Things, the TV show that everyone is talking about. Don’t miss Murray Lewis’s beautiful illustrations on pages 14 and 15 either.

This has been an issue of especially great art, so a big thank you to all the UEA artists who have sent us their work. If you’ve got anything you’d like contribute to future issues, please don’t be shy, we’d love to hear from you.

Perhaps you could get out your pencils and paint, if you’re looking for a really good reading week project…

Arts Editor - Mireia Molina Costa Film Editor - Gus Edgar Fashion Editor - Leah Marriott Creative Writing Editor - Saoirse Smith - Hogan

02

-Kate Romain

Venue Editor Gaming Editor - Charlie Nicholson Television Editor - Dan Struthers Music Editor - Nick Mason Arts and Design Assitants - Yaiza Canopoli & Emily Mildren

Contents

04

7th November 2017

08

11

Film

Fashion

Becky Fitzhugh pays tribute to the often overlooked power of illustrations

Sophie Bunce considers the problems with “Oscar Bait” films

Hattie Griffiths spills the beans on the best way to wear, you guessed it, glitter!

16

Music

20

23

Gaming

Television

Frances Butler catches up with Pale Waves, Manchester born girl-band.

James Nicholls explores the question of mental health in the game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Television editor Dan and Evelyn Forsyth-Muris debate whehter Doctor Who should be axed or not

27

30

Arts

Front and back cover credits: Mireia Molina Costa

Creative Writing

Features

Liam Heitman-Rice tells us why he can longer watch Inception

Gabriela Willams gives an insight into what we can expect from much anticipated new series of Stranger Things

03

Arts

An image is worth a thousand words However, they are not solely the naïve beginnings of art. Quentin Blake’s drawings, scattering the pages of Roald Dahl’s stories, showcase the great skill of an illustrator. Beauty is found within his quirky, jagged lines and sweet and colourful style, instantly recognisable.

The thought that a medium could be a playful, simple art, reminiscent of our childhood, or an aesthetic representation of intimate, complex subjects seems unfathomable. However, illustrators frequently express both notions, seemingly with ease, confirming the flexibility and diversity of this adored art form.

My initial thoughts on illustrations reflect the colourful, imaginative drawings located in books I read as a child – these can be seen as the very beginnings of literary thought, and aren’t necessarily regarded as highly as adult literature. The drawings that accompany them are thus used as a means to complement the text, their purpose being to induce cognitive understanding for children who are learning to read.

04

His illustrations are considered as art for the fundamental reason that they required creative thought and expression.

The process of translating ideas of imagination into a visual medium for an audience confirms the significance of illustration within the world of art.

Graphic novels also present the greatest case for the power and prestige of illustrators. Who would have considered a book consisting almost entirely of pictures, along with gutters and small amounts of text, to be a medium of integrity and literary status?

the narrative of story-telling Spiegelman does it in an intimate yet exhaustive way.

The child-like style of mice discussing an indescribable event expresses the appeal and accessibility of illustrations. Maybe it’s the simple reason that they’ve been drawn by hand, a personal experience shared with an audience.

At a basic level, the function of an illustration could be to add meaning to text. However, they are found in a variety of mediums, expressing complex ideas in an imaginative and comprehensive way.

The familiar nature and relaxed style allows for discussion and interpretation of subjects we shy away from. The importance of illustrations lies in their expansion of historical knowledge and aesthetic forms, and we should celebrate this.

The Complete Maus, graphic novel by cartoonist Art Spiegelman, is a contemporary example of the political power of images to represents a historical event. The depiction of the holocaust is by no means an easy task, but with the use of Illustrations (top left to right): Emily Mildren; Jo Castle; Jo Castle (bottom): Murray Lewis

-Becky Fitzhugh

Arts

Let your colours shine Orange, blue, red, white, gold and green.

I know listing colours seems completely random. However, we are all colours personified.

Allow me to explain. Colours are not in existence for the sole purpose of looking pretty. In fact, daily, colours serve to fuel our imagination, creativity and our emotions. When surrounded by green tainted things, which often represent nature, quickly you feel like you have enough peace to think well, as well as enough strength to prosper. Likewise, it is easy to feel like a jubilant child again when staring at orange flames. However, colours have an effect which appears most prevalent in the form of a fireworks display.

Fireworks, light up the colours orange, blue, red, white, gold and green in different patterns and variations. They bring to light this reality that we often overlook: colours are way more powerful than they first appear. When they light up in the sky we cannot help but stop and stare, and obey the commands and whispers to feel, dream and love. We need to appreciate the poetic beauty of human nature on display in its most dazzling way.

We have become so used to counting down until it’s Guy Fawkes or New Year’s Day, that we forget that fireworks were not created to be contained. When they erupt, it is clear that they should not and cannot be confined to just those two days. Suddenly there are explosions, frenzies, fits and bursts of colour all around you. How beautiful it is to see all these passions paint the sky, and how can you help but question why that does not happen every day?

When Donald Trump becomes the President of America, when times are tough back home or things are not going too well for you. It is easy to lose all faith in humanity. However, with Black History Month behind us and with a new

year awaiting us, it becomes important to reflect on how far forward the passions of Martin Luther King, Ghandi and many others have taken us. On how the passion behind the people fighting against terrorists enables them to win, or on how the fire and colour brought you here to UEA, to your current degree.

Colours can sometimes be overlooked.

It is far too easy to walk past a rainbow these days and not appreciate it, simply because we know they come after the rain. It is hard to appreciate the fact that the grass is still green, when we fear that soon this will not be the case. It’s easy to see colours, but not notice or feel very much at all.

That’s why, like fireworks every time they are on display, we must make a point of our own colours, and let them shine. We must re-adjust our focus lens to catch every glimpse of colour that passes by. We need to bring our loved ones, our family members and our friends along with us, to notice the magnificence behind their colours as well as your own.

Stop waiting for Guy Fawkes day. Be the fireworks; the live art that exists every day.

-Camomile Shumba

Images (left): Pixabay, mgeejnr; (right) BrinkhoffM+Âgenburg

Tickets for a tenner: Hedda Gabler in Norwich

Following a sold out run at the National Theatre, this modern production of Ibsen’s thrilling masterpiece, Hedda Gabler, comes to Norwich Theatre Royal from Tuesday 7 – Saturday 11 November.

The production, centred on a freespirited, newly married women who feels trapped in her new relationship, takes the audience on a journeys of emotions embodied by Hedda’s complex and destructive personality, which leads the character to be one of the greatest dramatic female roles in theatre.

Concrete readers can get tickets for £10, a saving of £17.50, for the following performances: Wednesday 8 November 7.30pm, Thursday 9 November 2.30pm, Saturday 11 November 2.30pm & 7.30pm.

To receive this offer readers can call the Box Office on (01603) 63 00 00 and quote Concrete Hedda Offer, or enter CONCRETE in the Promo Code box when booking online at theatreroyalnorwich.co.uk.

There is a maximum of four tickets per booker. The offer cannot be used in conjunction with other offers and is not applicable to tickets already booked.

-Mireia Molina

05

Arts

Nature is beautiful, but is it art?

There is very little in nature that can’t be considered beautiful. Everywhere you look in the natural world there is colour and shapes and patterns that blend so harmoniously together that we have no other option but to call them beautiful. Waterfalls, sunsets, the northern lights, I could go on. There is beauty everywhere. But how do we draw the line between Beauty and Art? Should we draw a line?

So, it’s that time of year again. The ground is covered in a rustling mass of reds, browns, oranges, and golds.

Autumn is often considered the most beautiful time of year; the lighting is soft, the air is clear, and everybody can feel the changing season. It almost makes up for the lack of daylight and dropping temperatures.

If you pay attention to any social media at all – I’m mainly looking at you, Instagram – you’ll have noticed the sudden abundance of pictures of windswept piles of leaves and bare trees against vivid sunsets. The changing of the seasons, and everything it entails, becomes seen as the world’s greatest collective artwork.

My question is, how far does nature in general count as art? And where can we truly see art in the natural world around us? But this just leads us on to the age old question – what is art? And how does it differ to beauty? Because as much as these concepts are not mutually exclusive (art does not have to be beautiful and beauty does not have to be art) they are almost always considered synonymously.

06

it this prestigious title, as opposed to say, the male peacock who has no control over his beauty?

Take the Fugu, the Japanese Puffer Fish, which spends a week creating intricate patterns in the sand in order to attract a mate (check out the video on the BBC website, it’s amazing). It is almost impossible to deny that what the fish creates is art, but what makes it so?

Is it the work and effort that goes into its creation that names it art, as opposed to the beauty we may see naturally occurring patterns in the sand?

But even here we must continue to question, as the puffer fish does not choose to make these pretty patterns for any other reason than to attract a mate as his species has evolved to do. Does this take away from the suggestion that this feat is artwork? Or does the fact that we can see exactly where this pattern comes from automatically grant

What I suppose I’m really asking, in a roundabout kind of way, is whether or not the term ‘art’ is just a bullshit way of us as humans to place a certain aspect of pride on the beauty that we create.

So much art, whether it be paintings or photos to dances and poems, is based on works of nature. Perhaps it is just human nature to resent the fact that, no matter how hard we try, we will never be able to replicate the splendour of the living world around us.

But whatever the reason we feel this innate need to prove ourselves against the image of mother nature, we can all admit that being able to love and appreciate this beauty in every way is what makes us human, and that we should treasure it for as long as we’re able. So get out there and fill the virtual world with images of the turning leaves and fluffy clouds, make the most of this beautiful time of year.

-Abi Steer

Images: (left to right) Pixabay, valiunic; Pixabay, sharonang; Pixabay, Poswiecie, Coffee Follow 353

We have a long way to go....

I adore clothes. Completely. I recently purchased a blue velvet t-shirt which makes me look absolutely ridiculous in the best way. Even more so with my dungarees.

Like many people, I feel good when I look good which, luckily for me, is often.

But like all good things, there’s a dark side. Fashion comes at a high price, which is why we should buy from charity shops, reuse our clothes, and donate our old things.

We don’t often think about where we get our clothes from, but they have to be made somewhere - if it’s wool or cotton then it’s covered in pesticides (cotton uses more than any other fibre).

Then there’s the addition of non natural fibres, which produces nitrous oxide - a greenhouse gas which is far more harmful than carbon dioxide.

Research from WRAP concluded that the annual footprints of a household’s new and existing clothing are equivalent to... The carbon emissions from driving an average modern car for 6,000 miles.

This sounds drastic, but makes sense when you look at the average amount of clothes in a house (£4000) that haven’t been

EcoFriendly Fashion

worn in the last year: thirty percent.

Discounting all the ethical issues facing certain clothes - the barbaric practices of wearing fur, suede etc - our current methods aren’t sustainable.

So as I said, buy second hand, use Depop and donate your old clothes. Don’t forget that there are more pressing matters than looking good.

-Jack Ashton

...but it’s easy being green

Recycle!

Just like your cardboard and beer bottles, the council picks up your unwanted textiles (no matter what condition they are in)! Instead of throwing away old clothes, this is an easy alternative that permits you that nice warm feeling inside.

Invest in quality, not quantity Especially in winter, you want clothes that’ll last you - it’s way better to get one pair of strong trousers than two pairs of weak ones, for example, both in terms of costs and the environment. It may seem better to buy cheaper, but in the long run it’ll cost us all more!

Buy second hand

Clean it right

Charity shops are the perfect place to source great unique pieces of clothing for even better prices. Plus, you’re preventing clothing from filling up landfill sites.

Bonus! Vintage shops also offer great second-hand eco-friendly options, though they can be a little pricier. Keep a look out for the UEA’s vintage fair which takes place in the Hive throughout the year, or take a trip to Norwich’s market for some great deals on vintage clothes.

Funnily enough, the chemicals you pour on your clothes during washing can be harmful to your body and the environment! Using naturally sourced laundry agents and detergents can be less environmentally taxing and feel a lot nicer for your skin. On top of that washing machines give you the option to wash clothes far hotter than you need to - washing at 30 degrees is better for the clothes and far more eco-friendly.

If you know what you’re doing, you can do your whites in the proper green way!

Image credits (left to right): Geograph, Roger A. Smith, pixaby, wikimedia commons, LGPER, Flickr, Money

-Tom Bedford and Kate Romain

07

Film

Call Me By Your Name: peachy in Italy

Adapted from Andre Aciman’s novel, Call Me By Your Name is the difference between a lukewarm Americano and a coffee of your choice with a selection of hazelnut, amaretto and mocha syrups. It’s the difference between squash and fresh pressed oranges. Set in the summer of 1983 ‘somewhere in Northern Italy,’ Luca Guadagnino’s seductive film is a delicious engagement of the bitter and saccharine, incorporating the ephemeral nature of a summer’s romance.

Our precocious protagonist, Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) falls for his father’s older intern, Oliver

(Armie Hammer). What follows is a hazy, private romance of desire and torment perfectly suited to a tale of first love.

Elio’s parents play a large part in the film’s cultured intelligence. Mr. Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg) is fascinated by Antiquity’s sculptures, those of which stand in as beautiful specimens of the human form. Towards the end of the film he delivers a visceral speech to his son, making the script indelible after viewing. Mrs. Perlman (Amira Casar) is an incredible multilingual mother who spends evenings reading Marguerite de Navarre’s The Heptaméron, with that ricochetting line: ‘is it better to speak or die?’

When Oliver is busy with Mr. Perlman, Elio spends his time transcribing music, reading and swimming in rivers.

When the two are together, they’re cycling

along cobblestone and spending evenings dancing to a stranger’s car radio in Rome.

Memorable moments in the film are cleverly unspoken. Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s cinematography enables terraced breakfasts to glow. Lust is transfixed to soft skin and the conflict of masculinity and sexual identity are presented in a way that means our senses are indulged.

Although this masterpiece is riddled with poetic charm, it does not stray far from sour heartbreak. Marzia (Esther Garrel), Elio’s on-and-off Parisian girlfriend, is witness to Elio’s growth, introducing the themes of a Bildungsroman.

New songs by Sufjan Stevens grace the soundtrack. Lyrics of ‘I have loved you for the last time’ awake the core and accompany tears that eventually fall in the winter, with the nostalgia for a summer’s past.

-Anisha Jackson

Thor: Ragnarok is Hela to sit through The first thing that struck me about Thor: Ragnarok was the dialogue; specifically, how the majority of it was simply dreadful. Cliched, predictable, and hammy, at one point I wondered if this was just one big joke on behalf of the scriptwriters, and the movie was actually making fun of me for having the credulity to purchase a ticket in the first place. Call me paranoid, but when you find yourself sitting through a movie with the line “I’ll pardon you… from life”, these kinds of ideas stop seeming quite so outlandish.

Luckily, I quickly realised that the dialogue wasn’t supposed to be engaging, or even interesting. The only reason it exists is to justify all the characters periodically engaging in various colourful, zany fight scenes, and thankfully, this is where the film manages to redeem itself.

The fight choreography is a spectacle, sporting an effortlessly cool disregard for the laws of physics, giving it a fun, feisty, and authentic comic-book-style feeling.

The problem is that there’s only so much action one can tolerate (even it’s as bright and stimulating as it is in Ragnarok) if the scenes outside the fights are consistently hamstrung by the aforementioned terrible script. There’s no effort made to establish any sort of compelling narrative, making the film drag in the second half; you’ll eventually reach a point where you just don’t care what’s happening on screen, whether it’s cartoonishly violent or not.

Loki’s (Tom Hiddleston) betrayal-andredemption character arc is staggeringly formulaic, and substantial motivation for Cate Blanchett’s villain is nowhere to be found.

Ragnarok treated us to some very peculiar performances, like Jeff Goldblum’s, which wasn’t exactly bad, but still bizarre.

Similarly, Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of Bruce Banner/the Hulk was pretty awful, and was hardly helped by the laughable and childish attempts of the script to make it seem like Bruce is clever. But these oddities can simply melt away into the film’s wacky, playful vibe in a way that a lack of any palpable character development just can’t.

What Ragnarok gives us, then, is a film whose capacity for superficial entertainment falls a little short of making up for the gaping void left where an interesting story should be.

-Ed Brown

Images: Wikimedia Commons (Peach); image.net, courtesy of BFI & BFI London Film Festival (inc. next page), modified by Gus Edgar

08

Film

The movie trend of 2017

Thankfully, the movie trend of 2017 is not, in fact, ‘deer jumping in front of moving cars’, as Get Out, Graduation, A Cure For Wellness and Elle once made it appear, but the noticeable and welcome rise of ‘female-driven coming-of-age stories...with a twist.’

Raw is one of these films: a French Bildungsroman dealing with themes of identity, discovering sexuality, and sisterhood, injected with a touching undertone. It’s also a quasi-horror cannibal movie with enough blood and guts to make Tarantino squirm. Similarly, Thelma uses the concept of psychic powers to explore self-identity and sexuality through the eyes of a teenage girl. Ava’s stabs at surrealism are much more sedate, in a coming-of-age tale involving blindness, stolen dogs and nudist beach theft. And Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, Lady Bird, is a rather more standard participant in this trend

Oscar bait; you’ll know it when you see it.

They are the films so hungry for Academy Award nominations you can sense it from day one of marketing. Think, serious, drama, probably Jennifer Lawrence, and there you have it: this year’s Best Picture.

Or at least one of the nominations.

It is no coincidence that Oscar bait films come out from November up until the March cut-off point. They are prepped and primed, marketed and promoted to death. They are in your face, but in a classy way, and never ever admit that they exist for one thing, and one thing only: for the golden statue.

When it comes to Oscar season in Hollywood, depressing is deemed synonymous with profound. This leads to mass production of films intended to win over judges with their insight, social relevance and artistic flair. This definition of Oscar bait should chime with most of last years prize winners. Manchester

(no surrealism, plenty of coming-of-age), but the humour and relatability marks it out as a wonderful entry nonetheless.

and Moonlight, that the genre can be injected with arthouse bravura without straying too far away from its roots.

What these films all have in common is their fixation on the purely female perspective. None of these films could have simply been gender-shifted; this is the teenage girl’s experience relived through filmmaking lens. It belongs to them, and only them.

This isn’t just excluded to foreign independent films, however. Gloriously, one of 2017’s most significant and widely acclaimed films is highly emblematic of this trend: Wonder Woman. Though it may not initially seem like it, she follows all the tropes: a sheltered, cyclical initial existence, a craving to break free of this existence, a breach into an undiscovered world, and the process of learning about both life and her own identity. Whereas tired sequels seemed to be all the rage last year, 2017’s fixation is a lot more fulfilling, healthy, and - let’s face it, in the wake of scandal after scandal with a distinct gender bias - necessary. Perhaps not coincidentally, another thing these films have in common is that they’re all rather great.

The trend is a combination of three obvious major factors. It’s the growing urge for the representation of strong female characters in film, following a near-century slant towards male-led pictures. It’s the acknowledgement of a new 21st Century social landscape for young girls, teenagers and millennials to explore and develop. And, focusing on the ‘...with a twist’ aspect, it’s the increasing awareness, provoked by widely celebrated male coming-of-age films like Boyhood

Oscar bait

by the Sea, an incredibly downbeat film, dominated the awards. However brilliantly it did, it’s unlikely to have won over any casual cinemagoers. But it doesn’t matter because it got what they wanted; nominations.

- Gus Edgar

the many ways nominations and awards shows are being narrowed and I for one have had enough.

- Sophie Bunce

Award based production is a slippery slope and cinema trips become boring: bait is basic. It is no secret that the Oscars need to improve diversity, and nominations are no exception. One more biopic with greyish tones and I’ll scream. How many years have to pass for a comedy to be nominated for best picture?

The problem with Oscar bait isn’t that the films aren’t good films. They often are. It’s that they are just one type of film. When the awards highlight only one genre, one actor or one writer they negate to recognise the breadth of talent in Hollywood. As viewers, it is boring seeing the same thing and patronising to be told it’s different. Oscar bait is one of

09

Film

9 iconic moments in cinema 2001: A Space Odyssey

Many people consider Jurassic Park to be the film that influenced the special effects in movies we see today. However, I believe 2001: A Space Odyssey did this many years beforehand. The opening scene in space scored to Johan Strauss’ The Blue Danube’ is truly breathtaking to behold; a timeless classic. - James Mortishire

No Country for Old Men

The coin toss sequence in The Coen Brothers magnum opus is utterly iconic in a scene of psychological torment from Javier Bardem’s sinister hitman, to an unsuspecting shopkeeper. It’s a truly nail-biting moment and the first time Bardem leaves someone’s life up to pure chance - normally, victims are shot with no questions asked! - Oscar D. Huckle

Thelma & Louise

“Let’s just keep going”, says Thelma to Louise, as they sit in Louise’s blue convertible on the edge of the Grand Canyon, surrounded by police officers and helicopters. The film follows their journey from dissatisfied housewives to wanted criminals, and ends with one of the most iconic scenes of all time: the two of them driving straight into the Canyon together. - Kate Romain

Casablanca

Of all the moments in all the movies… for Casablanca’s iconic essence just listen to the first wistful notes of its theme ‘As Time Goes By’. It ushers in the bittersweet reunion between Bergman and Bogey’s timeless lovers. The very definition of silver screen romance. Play it (again) Sam, please. - Nina Duncan

The Terminator

The most referenced scene of the classic sci-fi film, even by its own sequels. The terminator attempts to enter a police station to kill the main character. Initially surprising and terrifying, it uses our intrinsic understanding of how editing implies storyline to comfort, question and then shock. A masterpiece of its time and now. - Elvyn Forsyth-Muris

A Trip To The Moon

Perhaps the most well-known image in cinematic history, the moment where a rocket launchs itself into a moon (fit with endearingly blatant practical effects) gave filmmaking the blastoff it needed to evolve to the lofty heights it finds itself in today. It may look cheesy now, but it was once revolutionary. - Gus Edgar

Pulp Fiction

“And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee”. These lines, followed by poor Brett getting shot to pieces, put the capper on Pulp Fiction’s most memorable scene, one entirely dominated by Samuel L Jackson’s barnstorming performance as Jules Winnfield. - Tom Hall

Good Will Hunting

The park bench scene in Good Will Hunting is iconic. It undoubtedly won Robin Williams the Oscar for Best Actor and Matt Damon and Ben Affleck the Oscar for Best Screenplay.

This treasured piece of cinema breaks your heart and affirms your reasons for living. “Your move, Chief.” - Alex Caesari

The Princess Bride

Whilst The Princess Bride is ultimately a comedy, the director (Reiner) still manages to incite a rising level of tension due to the incredible choreography and swordsmanship of the Man-in-Black and Inigo. It’s not only a battle of strength, but more so, a timeless, incredibly amusing and powerful battle of wit. - Eva Wakeford

10

Images: Wikimedia Commons (2001); Wikipedia (Moon)

Fashion

UEA fashionistas caught on camera

Moriah Ogunbiyi First year @moriah_ogunbiyi

Moriah’s looks have caught our eye many a time but this was the only instance we managed to catch him to snap a picture.

Everything comes together wonderfully in this all vintage look with the corduroy trousers being a standout, breaking up the monochromatic colouring of the rugby shirt and Converses.

Zoe Huang Third year @zoe_loveuuu Third year Zoe’s absolutely crushing it with this high fashion autumnul get up, sourced entirely from Selfridges, London. The amazing Gucci sneakers are the centre-piece of the outfit, brightening the whole thing up a notch. Fashion week ready!

Tio Grand @grand_tio Tio’s laidback understated style caught our eye even with the darker colours he’s draped in. The light distressing on the Levi’s jacket is our favourite detail here.

-Bobby Onangua

11

Fashion

November fashion November is when the autumn season really sets in. So here are some fashion and lifestyle tips for adapting to the much colder and gloomier weather which is on the way:

accessory for November and are perfect for keeping your ears warm when watching the fireworks.

1. Denim

They’re here to stay from the summer season and are perfect on a statement bag to spice up a plain black outfit and distract from the gloomy weather

Denim is still seriously popular right now! Why not try adding a pair of fluffy tights under your dungaree dresses or a thick jumper under your denim jacket for added warmth?

2. Layering

There is no need to cast away your summer t-shirts just yet – try layering them up under a jumper, perfect for the changing temperatures when diving in and out of shops near Christmas time!

3. Black Boots

A staple for any autumn wardrobe is a good pair of black boots, whether heeled or flat, chunky or classic, they are perfect for when the cold and rain start settling in. H&M always have a great collection!

4. Hats

The bobble hat craze is back for another year! Hats are the cosiest and prettiest

12

5.Florals and studs

6. Loungewear

Now, a dressing gown might not be the most fashionable item around, but it is definitely a staple for this time of year.

Why not make it even cosier by treating yourself to one with a hood?

7. Fashion Shows

Norwich have some amazing fashion events this month. The Norwich Christmas Fashion Show on 30th November is particularly great and perfect for those looking to impress during the Christmas season!

8.Christmas Preparation

November is the ideal time to start your Christmas shopping early. There is nothing worse than watching the whole of November (and then December) fly

by and admit that once again you should have sorted everything out earlier. Try writing a list of the key things you need to get this year – and maybe add a few little treats for yourself too!

9.

Hand Cream

November is also the time where hand cream becomes a handbag essential.

Palmers is a personal favourite for its delicious cocoa butter scent!

10. Skincare

Beauty gurus have introduced hyaluronic acid into their skincare this season. It is essentially a moisture enhancing serum which works perfectly to prevent dryness.

The brand ‘The Ordinary’ is repeatedly recommended and is only £6 on ASOS!

11.Christmas Countdown!

Last but not least… November is always one of those months where you barely realise it’s here before it’s over and the countdown to Christmas has begun, so don’t work too hard, don’t study too hard, and just enjoy it!

- Evangeline Stanford

Images: (left to right) Flickr, Paul Townsend, public domain pictures, max pixel

Fashion

Glitter: the best ways to wear it Bonus level:

Dye your hair to a colour matching your glittered eyes and eyebrows, then pour glitter all over Nothing is too much. Let loose!!

- Hattie Griffiths

The very title of this article is misleading, I feel; glitter does not work with certain looks – it works with ANYTHING. Aside from being depressingly wet and dark until a frankly ludicrous time in the late morning nowadays, tis also the season for glittery shoes, sleek sparkly dress numbers and multi-coloured shiny eyelashes. Just in case you didn’t get the permanent glitter fashion memo however, we’re here to help. Here’s a few of my favourite glitter looks for the upcoming festive season:

1.Eyes

Coming in at number one because it’s the absolute best, glitter around the eyes always spices up a great evening outfit. If wearing coloured eyeshadow, a matching shade of glitter always blends in a treat.

Apply over a thin layer of Vaseline for extra stick-ability.

Bonus level: incorporate your eyebrows

into your sleek eye look, and use coloured eyeliner or eyeshadow cream as well as glitter to shape and define those lines.

2. Arms

You roll up your sleeves in the middle of the dancefloor, and everyone is forced to avert their eyes from the waves of sparkling colour shining from your two appendages. Imagine wielding that sort of dazzling power. Arms are a very underrated cosmetic space. Build on that blank canvas by applying body lotion first to soften the skin, then patting your chosen glitter (the lighter the colour, the easier it’ll be to blend into the skin) all over your arms.

Bonus level:

stretch some fishnet tights over your freshly lotioned limbs, and use a powder brush to dot glitter over the top. Upon removing the tights, you should be greeted with a criss-crossed pattern of sparkles.

3. Hair

We all remember that glitter beard fad that swept over festivals worldwide in the summer of ’16. For a homemade hairdo, try sprinkling thick chunks of glitter into your parting, then securing the grains with hairspray.

Images (top to bottom): Flickr by Pumpkincat210 (eye and lips), Maxpicel, pixabay

13

s t r a n g e r t h i n g s RETURNS....

It’s been 469 days, or 67 weeks, or over Eleven thousand hours since Stranger Things graced Netflix, and they’ve been some incredibly tense hours. But now the moment countless fan theories and frantic re-watches have lead to is here: the hugely anticipated release of Season 2.

14

This Halloween, Stranger Things returns with its much anticipated second season. The town of Hawkins, Indiana is still mourning the death of ‘Barb’ from season one and the suspicious activities at Hawkins Lab continue to be unknown to the town.

The lovable cast of returning child actors has a new addition in the form of ‘Madmax’, a fiery red head with a stereotypical Steven King-style bullying older brother. Max is played by Sadie Sink, known for playing the titular role in Annie on Broadway as well as other movies and TV shows. In contrast to Max’s older brother, played by Dacre Montgomery, we see an interesting twist in the arc of the character Steve (played

by Joe Keery). He is no longer the high school jock stock character, and develops a surprisingly funny character pairing with Dustin (played by Gaten Matarazzo).

Meanwhile, Detective Hopper discovers a decaying pumpkin patch that has spread to most of Hawkins agricultural areas.

His character is given more screen time compared to last season and the writers have developed him further than just the cranky small-town cop with alcohol problems. Winona Ryder is back as Joyce Byers, Will’s seemingly crazy mother who decorates her house in strange and often implausible ways, is understandably over protective, and the outcast of the town’s mothers.

Whilst the show’s classic 80s theme comes from specific aesthetic and referential choices, and provides a comforting and cosy feeling for most, a few cleverly placed jump scares also lull the watcher into a false sense of fear; an effective juxtaposition. However, at times, the season relies heavily on the tropes of most horror films a little too much.

One of the most amusing lines from Dustin is: “we’ve got bigger problems than your love life” (said to Steve when he’s looking for Nancy). Another great moment is Steve showing Dustin how to replicate the classic full volume 80s mullet for the school’s Christmas dance is a truly heart-warming scene.

This character pairing highlights the comedic and nostalgic traits that Stranger Things is known for.

The soundtrack of the second season uses the classic, synthesized orchestral sounds that we know and love from the first season. There are also a couple of 80s hits thrown in there too, such as Bon Jovi’s “Runaway”, The Police’s “Every breath You Take” and The Runaways’ “Dead End Justice”, as well as other 80s classics that you just can’t help but sing along to.

Another new arrival is the character of Roman, who is played

by Linnea Berthelsen, and her quirky mix of outcasts roaming the streets of Illinois. Although this is a small role, her acting is impeccable, and her character is superbly written, so much so that you start to want to join her and her group of outcasts in a darker version of ‘The Breakfast Club’.

Stranger Things 2 is perfect for binge watching on Halloween, but remember to keep the lights on for those gruesome and terrifying scenes that leave you with nightmares for weeks.

It ties up plot holes from the first season in a sophisticated manner, and introduces us to newer lovable kids and newer horrible nightmares, and does so with the Duffer Brother’s impressive knack for storytelling.

-Gabriela Williams

Illustrations by Murray Lewis

15

Music

Nevermind the boybands, here’s Pale Waves Pale Waves came to Norwich on October 25th for a raucous show. Frances Butler was fortunate enough to catch a word with the new indie darlings prior to their Waterfront Studio show.

How is tour going?

Heather Baron-Gracie: Really good. Last night in London was amazing, it was probably my favourite show. There was a stage invasion.

Ciara Doran: We had to start the song again. Someone fell into my drum kit, Charlie’s bass came out and there was no sound.

What are your plans in regards to future music?

H: We’ve got an EP coming out, the first track on it is our next single. It’s been done, finished, sent to radio, so that should be coming out very soon. There’s another three tracks on the EP, and then we’re looking to record the album.

How do you feel about being female musicians in the music industry?

C: I think one of the bad things is people just coming to the shows because of attraction - especially towards Heather - and being a bit creepy. The first show we did, the Birmingham show, Heather was like “it’s really hot on stage” and someone shouted “take something off.”

It’s uncomfortable.

H: The industry is quite male-dominated still. With women being in the industry and making a name for themselves, it’s getting more popular these days and is really encouraging other women. It shouldn’t be dominated by any gender.

C: I don’t think we’re seeing the full effect of it, because we’ve got loads of fans who love us and don’t care what gender we are, or maybe love us even more because we’re girls doing it. It’s a mixed gender band as well, I love how we’ve got the two boys and I wouldn’t change that for anything.

Is there anything you’ve done in this band that you didn’t think you’d be able to do?

C: This tour.

H: Being treated like it’s our show is really strange for us.

C: We’ve never had that. I feel like our career has come at a really nice pace, so we can appreciate absolutely everything. It’s been a really long process. Playing loads of shitty shows in Manchester. Really bad gigs. You always grow as a person as well, if it takes a bit longer. When you get to stage like this, you know exactly who you are, what you want your band to be, how you want to come across. You need to do all the shit things, you need to struggle, because if you don’t, you’re not going to appreciate it.

-Frances Butler

H: We’re encouraging other young girls to get into music.

C: And not be scared of it. I can’t count how many girls have said to me “I really want to do drums,” and it’s good, because no-one’s going to stop you from doing it. It is quite intimidating to play an instrument which is quite male dominated.

16

Images: Francis Butler

The main event Openers King Nun make themselves known to the audience when they jump into action, with raw-edged and suitably loud Tulip. Lead singer and guitarist Theo uses the small stage to his full advantage, jumping about whilst narrowly avoiding his bandmates - lead guitarist James, bassist Nathan, and drummer Caius.

All still teenagers, this might be one reason for the band’s enthusiastic edge, making their mark on the crowd with the comparatively laid back Sponge, proving them capable of creating songs with the appropriate mix of riotous noise and a solid underpinning of melody.

“We are Pale Waves, and we’re from Manchester,” singer and guitarist Heather Baron-Gracie announces, taking the stage for their first headline show in Norwich.

Latest single, Television Romance, is a perfect mix of meaningful and upbeat.

Although songs such as My Obsession highlight the band’s combination of melody and painfully honest lyrics, it is debut single There’s A Honey which leaves a real impression. Showcasing 80’s influences such as The Cure without losing its originality, it’s echoed back to the band so enthusiastically it leaves Heather singing through smiles.

-Frances Butler

Music

Julien Baker: a screaming televangelist Julien Baker is an unlikely starlet. Her debut album, Sprained Ankle, was never intended to even get a physical release.

It ended up propelling her on world tours. Dealing with substance abuse, religion and sexuality, it was a candid and vulnerable effort from a young woman finding her place in the world.

Regarding themes, Turn Off The Lights is much the same, but far more mature in its reflections. Appointments is a heartachingly beautiful account of struggling with mental health and rejection. In Shadowboxing Baker implores her beloved to “Say that you love me, say that you loved me” with desperation that feels all too immediate and faltering. Yet for all the vulnerability, there are moments where Baker shows her immense strength, both of voice and spirit. Televangilist hears her roaring about “clutching my crucifix of white

noise and static,” whilst in ‘Happy To Be Here’ she says she’s “not fooled when you tell me you’re glad I came,” in response to the greeting of the chair of a rehab meeting.

Musically little has changed from Sprained Ankle. There are more layered guitars, the odd bit of piano, some strings in Over and Hurt Less and organ, but it is a sound that remains far from broken.

Baker’s music was always more a canvas for the vocals to go on that the main attraction, and the instrumentation serves its purpose here fantastically. It does not detract from the most vulnerable and beautiful moments of the album, yet it swells as and when required. It is rare that the album ever takes on an element of power, but that makes the hit of the loudest and proudest moments all the more poignant.

With Turn Off The Lights Baker has written a collection that can only be referred to as a masterpiece. Nothing is done simply for the sake of it. Every note, lyric, and moment of silence is considered. Not a single second of the album is wasted but nothing feels missing.

A shining example of how to make music.

-Nick Mason

The spoons of silence

Along with the exuberant carpets, Weatherpoons’ lack of music remains a talking point, with many arguing that a night out at Spoons would be greatly improved with music. To me, a Spoons veteran, this argument makes about as much sense as ordering a pint of Stella.

If you’re lucky enough to live near a Spoons that doesn’t turn into a budget Year 8 disco-esque nightclub at 9pm, you have been spared the unspeakable horrors of a Spoons that has music, and can be forgiven for thinking that Spoons would be better off with music. Nothing is a bigger vibekiller than the sight of a middleaged couple enjoying their Spoons curry.

However, if instead of a club setting, an employee were to plug in an aux chord and supply tunes to the audience of students, locals and creepy old men alike, it’s essential to ask: what music would satisfy the diverse musical tastes of Spoons clientele? “Chart music”, says the layman, “for it appeals to the general public”. “Smooth jazz”, says the music snob, “for its relaxed tempo is an automatic stimulus for conversation”.

“Really good and cool bands like Oasis and Arctic Monkeys”, says the common indie, although their opinion is automatically invalidated for their admission to Spoons rests solely on whether the bar staff accepts their fake ID. “A non-stop, 24 hour long filthy DnB mix” says the bucket-hat-wearing, Adidas-clad, middle class roadman whose main conversation starter is “did you go to Boomtown?”

I think its self-evident that none of these responses hold the truth. In a setting sonically fuelled by the general white noise of unintelligible conversations, whence cometh music? Not only would it be impossible to play music that would appease the wide variety of Spoonsgoers, the very act of playing music itself is utterly superfluous.

In brief, picture a Spoons that plays the music they play in McDonalds. Now mull over why that’s one of the worst ideas you’ve heard in your life. Spoons is cheap enough as it is, it needn’t be cheapened further by cheap music.

-Charlie Walker

New Releases

$pacely featuring Kwesi Arthur: Digits (Remix) Spacely, member of Alternative Rap and “Ghanaian Supergroup” La Meme Gang flips his original track with a guest verse from rapper Kwesi Arthur. Fan of the genre? Then give this single a listen and be pleasantly shocked.

-Ikenna

Enwereonu

17

Music

Rock n’ rip off You love music, right? You’re reading the music section of the paper, so chances are you love going to music events as well.

What you probably don’t love, however, is seeing tickets for your favourite bands and live music acts sell out in a matter of minutes, especially when you see them up on sites for three times the price just after you missed out.

Ticket touting has become a massive problem in the business of music and live events and tickets for artists such as Drake, Ed Sheeran and Adele can often go for over £200. Most recently, tickets to Liam Gallagher’s long awaited tour are being resold on StubHub for up to £1000, not really what the average student can afford...

names, including Florence and the Machine, Little Mix and Mumford and Sons, called for ticket touting to be made a criminal offence for all concerts, plays and sporting events in the UK. As well as this, good old Ed Sheeran, in an attempt to limit the amount of fans being taken advantage of by touts, cancelled 10,000 tickets that were being sold online for 2018 shows for ridiculous prices, and put them back on general sale. Sheeran also backs a reselling site - Twickets - marketed as a “fan-to-fan ticket resale” that is opposing profiteering resale websites. Artists clearly have a sense of frustration when it means loads of their genuine fans miss out to bots.

So what is being done about it? Last year, some of the music industry’s biggest

A recent survey released by anti-tout campaign group FanFair Alliance reported that ⅔ of respondents who had at some point paid more than face value for a ticket through resale were less likely to attend a gig in the future. Adam Webb, a FanFair Alliance campaigner concluded that ticket touting is doing “considerable long-term damage” to the music industry

There are two kinds of track – “killer” and “filler”. Traditionally “killer” tracks are the great songs released as singles to promote and sell a new album, and “filler” tracks are those in the album that aren’t any good, and are included to bulk up the track numbers to the size of an actual album

Gorgeous does nothing to distinguish itself from any other bland Swift song.

With lyrics like “I feel like I might sink and drown and die,” and my personal favourite “Cause look at your face,” Swift shows that she knows how to perfectly emulate the clichés of her own work.

Taylor Swift is trying to revolutionise the music industry with her new song “Gorgeous” by trying to release an absolutely bland “filler” song in place of a “killer” track to promote her new album Reputation.

This is a bad thing.

The only thing that separates a good Swift song and a normal Swift song is a rousing chorus melody, so when listening to any of her new songs you must ask “does this have a rousing chorus?” If the answer is yes, it’s a fine song. If not, it’s bland and boring, like Gorgeous.

Live music is the perfect way to get up close and personal to your favourite artists, whether at festivals or on tour, but it becomes increasingly difficult to access when ticket tours take over the market.

Taylor Swift: Snore-geous

Symbolised by the tinny and painfully generic drum beat which seems to show up in every pop song nowadays,

18

-Tom Bedford

and could cost it £4.5 billion.

Is it fair that we are able to put such a hefty price on music? Live music is fantastic and should be celebrated, whether you’re at a tiny venue with a capacity of 200 or the O2, it’s always a night to remember and you shouldn’t have to pay a ridiculous amount of money for the privilege.

Although touts are hard to stop, it’s something that’s being massively cracked down on and hopefully will become harder to take advantage of in the future, as pressure from artists and public alike will result in stricter regulations and make it fairer for everybody. Remember, no artist is worth paying £200+ for. Think of how many smaller music gigs you could go to for that!

-Charlotte Manning Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds: Fort Knox Fort Knox’ the second single off Noel’s upcoming third album, Who Built The Moon?, is a stylistic departure from previous works, almost devoid of lyrics and even bordering on cinematic in scope.

-Oscar Huckle

The Dangerous Summer: Fire

The reunion single from emo underdogs The Dangerous Summer has dropped.

Sonically picking up where the band left off with Golden Record, Fire’ once again sets the trio apart from the pack.

-Nick Mason

NOVEMBER SWITCHFOOT

Thu 2nd • 19.00 • LCR £16.50

AIRBOURNE

+ PHIL CAMPBELL & THE BASTARD SONS + THE WILD Sat 18th • 18.30 • LCR £21.00

ESKIMO DANCE - THE SOUND FOREVER AMY Sat 18th • 18.30 • WF £22.50 OF THE UK FT. GHETTS, D DOUBLE E, FEKKY, JOHN SMITH DEVLIN, P MONEY, PRESIDENT T, JAYKAE, NATHAN DAWE & MORE, 18+ ONLY Thu 2nd • 21.00 • LCR £18.00 1st Release / £25.00 2nd Release

+ WILL STRATTON Wed 22nd • 19.30 • WFS £15.00

HAPPY MONDAYS

+ BLOGHAUS DJ’S Thu 2nd • 19.30 • WF £15.00

30TH ANNIVERSARY TWENTY FOUR HOUR PARTY PEOPLE - GREATEST HITS TOUR + JOHN DASILVA Thu 23rd • 19.30 • LCR £29.50

THE RUTS DC

JAWS

SUPER HANS

+ GUESTS Fri 3rd • 18.30 • WFS £16.00

HENDRIX TRIBUTE - PURPLE JIMI + BLACK SABBATH TRIBUTE - FOREVER SABBATH Sat 4th • 18.30 • WFS £12.00

OH WONDER

+ JAYMES YOUNG Sun 5th • 19.00 • LCR £15.00

PINS

+ SINK YA TEETH + YASSASSIN Mon 6th • 19.30 • WFS £9.00

KING PARROT

Thu 23rd • 19.30 • WF £10.00

BASSJAM

+ TREE HOUSE FIRE Wed 8th • 19.30 • WFS £10.00

CRADLE OF FILTH

+ SAVAGE MESSIAH Thu 9th • 19.30 • WF £18.50

WILDWOOD KIN

+ WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR Thu 9th • 19.30 • WFS £11.00

+ CLOWN SMASH EVERYTHING + SUCKING GRUINTS + RATS PACKING GRENADES Wed 7th • 19.30 • WFS £6.00

SUB FOCUS

COCKNEY REJECTS

‘ORIGINAL LINE-UP’ + SICK ON THE BUS + KNOCK OFF + BRAINDANCE Fri 24th • 18.30 • WFS £19.50

FUTURE ISLANDS

+ ZACK MEXICO Thu 26th • 19.00 • LCR £22.50

THE SHERLOCKS

Fri 2nd • 18.30 • WF £13.50

DEMENTED ARE GO - “25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR” Fri 2nd • 18.30 • WFS £18.00

+ BREAKAGE + KIDEKO + WILL MOMENTUM Thu 8th • 22.00 • LCR £15.50

SPRING KING

EDDIE & THE HOT RODS

+ SAM COE AND THE LONG SHADOWS Sun 7th • 19.30 • WFS £15.00

Thu 8th • 18.30 • WFS £17.50

THIS IS MANCHESTER FEATURING THE CLONE ROSES, THE SMITHS LTD AND TRANSMISSION (JOY DIVISION TRIBUTE) Fri 9th • 18.00 • WFS £17.50

SLADE

+ KASSETIKA Thu 10th • 19.00 • WF £23.50 FT. ZION TRAIN + BLACK TWANG + EVA LAZARUS + MORE! Fri 24th • 21.00 • LCR £17.50 / £15.00 JORDAN ALLEN Fri 11th • 19.30 • WF £6.00 NUS

+ PAIN PENITENTIARY + THICKET OF PHOENIX CALLING ‘OUR ANTLERS LOST HEARTS TOUR’ Tue 7th • 19.30 • WFS £8.50 + DAVE MCPHERSON + THE VISITORS SLEAFORD MODS Thur 26th • 19.00 • WFS £6.00 Wed 8th • 19.30 • LCR £18.50

THE JB CONSPIRACY

KAVES

WILLIE J HEALEY

Sat 12th • 19.30 • WFS £7.00

DIRTY THRILLS, RENEGADE 12 AND BLUE NATION Sun 13th • 19.00 • WFS £10.00

UK SUBS

Sat 6th • 18.30 • WFS £10.00

JESS AND THE BANDITS HENRY ROLLINS TRAVEL SLIDESHOW Mon 8th • 19.30 • LCR £20.00

CASH

Tue 9th • 18.30 • WFS £12.00

ALIEN ANT FARM

+ SOIL + LOCAL H Wed 10th • 18.30 • WF £20.00

HAYSEED DIXIE

+ EMMA MCGRATH Tue 13th • 19.30 • WF £18.50

BOWLING FOR SOUP

Wed 14th • 19.30 • LCR £25.00

SPACE

Fri 16th • 18.30 • WFS £16.00

+ LONDON CALLING (CLASH TRIBUTE) Tue 15th • 18.30 • WFS £16.00

REBECCA FERGUSON

POUT OF THE DEVIL

+ CHINA CRISIS Sat 17th • 18.30 • WF £25.00

+ BLIND TIGER + SCREAM SERENITY Wed 16th • 18.30 • WF £7.00

Sat 17th • 18.30 • LCR £27.50

PAUL YOUNG

MARK LANEGAN BAND

PIRATEFEST FEATURING CHOP SUEY (SOAD TRIBUTE) ALESTORM + MACHINE HEAD U.K. + DOWN

BEANS ON TOAST AND SKINNY LISTER

SANTA CRUZ

Sat 28th • 19.30 • WF £22.50

Mon 30th • 19.30 • WF £14.00

HUNTER AND THE BEAR + THE HIGH POINTS Mon 30th • 19.30 • WFS £9.00

DECEMBER

THE REZILLOS

+ RAMPTON DISCO + SMART ALEX + NELLY + SIR THE BAPTIST HOTWIRED

WITH THE SICKNESS Wed 16th • 18.30 • WFS £14.00

+ THE DREAD CREW OF ODDWOOD + RUMAHOY Wed 21st • 19.30 • WF £18.50

+ SKARLETT RIOT Thu 17th • 19.00 • WF £12.00

THE CHRISTIANS

MOSTLY AUTUMN

THE FRONT BOTTOMS

Thu 21st • 19.30 • WF £15.00 GENERAL, £13 CONCESSIONS

THE QUIREBOYS - “TIME FOR THE XMAS PARTY” Sat 23rd • 18.30 • WFS £18.50

JANUARY

Fri 23rd • 18.30 • WF £20.00 + THE SMITH STREET BAND + BRICK & MORTAR Sun 25th • 19.00 • WF £17.00

MARCH

Fri 10th • 18.30 • WFS £16.00

Fri 1st • 18.30 • LCR £27.50

BIG COUNTRY

T’PAU “CHINA IN YOUR HAND - 30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR” MELTDOWN LIVE PRESENTS FINN DOHERTY + WE’LL BE + SCARLET DETECTIVES + VAUDEVUE + Fri 1st • 18.30 • WF £27.00 KULK Sat 13th • 18.30 • WFS £6.00 BAD TOUCH + MOLLIE MARRIOTT SKIDS Fri 1st • 18.30 • WFS £14.00

Thu 1st • 19.30 • WF £20.00

THE DIVINE COMEDY

THE OVERTONES

Sat 11th • 19.00 • WF £22.50

A FOREIGNERS JOURNEY + UPRISING Sat 11th • 18.30 • WFS £12.00

VON HERTZEN BROTHERS + WALKWAY Tue 14th • 19.30 • WFS £15.00

THE CADILLAC THREE

Sat 2nd • 18.30 • LCR £30.00

+ BROTHERS OSBORNE Wed 15th • 19.30 • LCR £18.50

UK FOO FIGHTERS

AN LFC EVENING WITH MCMAHON, WHELAN, MCDERMOTT, KENNEDY

COURTESANS

Wed 15th • 19.30 • WF £10.00 / £20.00 VIP

AS LIONS

+ LIGHTSCAPE + GREYHAVEN Wed 15th • 19.30 • WFS £8.00

STATUS QUO AQUOSTIC

+ FRASER CHURCHILL + RICHARD MALONE Thu 16th • 19.30 • LCR £45.00

THE TUBES FEATURING FEE WAYBILL Fri 17th • 18.30 • WF £25.00

YOUNG STATES

Fri 17th • 19.00 • WFS £5.00

10TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR Sat 2nd • 18.30 • WF £14.50 Sun 3rd • 19.00 • WFS £9.00

JW JONES

Tue 5th • 19.30 • WFS £10.00

ROLAND GIFT OF FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS Tue 6th • 19.30 • WF £22.50

FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES

+ BASEMENT Wed 7th • 19.30 • LCR £16.50

PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT

PERFORMING ‘SUBSTANCE’ BY JOY DIVISION & NEW ORDER Wed 7th • 19.30 • WF £22.50

FOR FULL LISTINGS & TO BOOK TICKETS GO TO

UEATICKETBOOKINGS.CO.UK

40TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR Fri 19th • 18.30 • WF £25.00

TO KILL A KINGZZZ

Sun 21st • 19.30 • WFS £10.00

HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD

+ THE ONE HUNDRED Sat 27th • 18.30 • WFS £18.50

REJJIE SNOW

EVERYTHING EVERYTHING Fri 2nd • 18.30 • LCR £19.50

THE BRITPOP REBOOT FT. OASIS, BLUR & PULP TRIBUTES Fri 2nd • 22.30 • WF £12.50

Sat 3rd • 18.30 • LCR £25.00

FOR THOSE ABOUT TO ROCK: LIVEWIRE AC/DC VS LIMEHOUSE LIZZY Sat 3rd • 18.30 • WF £20.00

MOTIONLESS IN WHITE

PAUL DRAPER

HIGHLY SUSPECT

FEEDER - ‘THE BEST OF’ TOUR

CANE HILL & ICE NINE KILLS Sun 28th • 19.00 • WFS £17.00 Tue 30th • 19.30 • WF £15.00

YUNGBLUD

Tue 30th • 19.30 • WFS £7.00

FEBRUARY THE SOUNDS OF BLACK UHURU

(PERFORMED BY MYKAL ROSE) + SKIPYARD ROCKERS + REBEL LION DJS Thu 1st • 19.30 • WF £17.50

Tue 6th • 19.30 • WF £17.50

Thu 8th • 19.30 • LCR £27.50

HELLS BELLS (AC/DC TRIBUTE)

Sat 10th • 18.30 • WFS £14.00

CANNIBAL CORPSE

+ BLACK DAHLIA MURDER + IN ARKADIA Tue 13th • 18.30 • WF £17.50

BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT Wed 14th • 19.30 • WFS £9.00

/thelcr - /waterfrontnorwich @officiallcr - @waterfrontnr1

CONCRETE

002

Gaming

Life is Strange episode 2 lives up to expectations It’s episodes like Brave New World which illustrate how shocking it is that more people aren’t playing Life is Strange.

Within thirty minutes you’re made to sympathise with a character who has only been shown as a bully until now; simple text messages make your heart bleed for a poor mother trying to connect with her daughter. In one scene they completely sell their audience on the main ship of this trilogy.

We finally get to see the moment in Chloe’s life where she feels completely pushed out of society and her family, retreating to her junkyard and gripping tight to her connection with Rachel. The relationship has been provided the time it needed to develop and feel more natural compared, to its instantaneous inclusion in episode one. One particular scene later on seals the deal on why we should care about these two.

Rachel is an utter delight to behold, whether we’re watching a private moment between her and Chloe dreaming of their freedom from Arcadia Bay, or a time when displayes just how talented she really is – fulfilling the image created through

20

descriptions of her in the original game.

But, in reality, it’s her unpredictability that really makes her shine. In an instant, she is able to turn a scene which, at first glance, would simply be the equivalent of a memory minigame, and forces it to evolve into a deeply moving exchange where the pair bare their hearts to each other in a raw promise of commitment. It’s fitting that the scene in question is built around the performance of The Tempest, as Chloe and Rachel’s whirlwind romance is comparable to that of Shakespeare’s slew of star-crossed lovers.

It is, therefore, astonishing to see from whose loins this fruit was born. Rachel’s parents are an incredible blend of stiffness and personalities devoid of emotion for the most part. Her father, district attorney Ray Amber, at least has the main storyline behind him to push him forward as a tool for Rachel’s development, providing her motivation to move forward. The same cannot be said for Rose Amber, whose character model looks like something left on the cutting room floor of Mass Effect Andromeda, that the developers saw, grabbed, and shoved a faulty satnav inside,

and providing it with the most awkward dialogue they could come up with in an effort to try and integrate their new robotic abomination into society.

They failed.

The only saving graces of this scene are Chloe’s awkward ‘meet the girlfriend’s parents’ antics, and the climactic cliffhanger thaat leads into the finale. The parents would be hilarious if it weren’t for Rose’s dead, soulless gaze This episode provides a wondrous bridge to maintain the momentum built by its strong predecessor, holding tight to the beautiful aesthetics of the series, and letting the hand of time mend the issue of a rushed romance which reared it’s head in the first episode. Even in spite of the comically bad Ambers, this episode lives up to expectations and instils a sense of anticipation and dread at the looming final episode simply for not wanting this to end.

-Vince Gaffney

Gaming

Deal with the devil: Cuphead and Difficulty The phrase “git gud” has become synonymous with the ‘Dark Souls’ series; games renowned for their uncompromising difficulty, punishing even the slightest hesitation in combat with the removal of a meaty chunk from the player’s health bar. However, players who lack the reactions to best the bosses outright, or the spare time to learn the strings of attack patterns, are met only with scorn by the fanbase and the aforementioned cries of “git gu”’. Take a peek through the Steam reviews for Studio MDHR’s debut hit Cuphead and you’ll be certain to see similar sentiments being expressed.

Cuphead is a boss battle focused platformer with elements of ‘bullet hell’; a style of gameplay where the player must dodge enemy attacks in quick succession.

However, the difficulty and reactionbased gameplay are where most of the similarities between ‘“Dark Souls” and Cuphead end. The former has a world and lore that suits its brutal difficulty with delightfully gothic environs and Cronenburg-esque monsters, while the

latter evokes some of the earliest Disney cartoons from the 30s, complete with satanic undertones.

little more than a distraction, holding the player back from experiencing top-class world and monster design.

The uncompromising nature of Cuphead can be undercut slightly by using the ‘simple’ difficulty; this is more of a glorified practice mode than anything else. At the very least, it offers a way to start climbing the ladder to achieving the skills of the slick youtubers who can clear the game without taking a single hit.

The only difficulty option in Dark Souls makes the game even harder.

The most immediately noticeable aspect of Cuphead is the level and character designs that seem like they could be from a lost pre-WW2 animated show, complete with screen flickers. To an extent, the game’s ‘simple’ mode could be considered as more of a visual experience than an interactive one, allowing the player to set about exploring the cartoonish world at a leisurely pace.

So, the question is, why would anyone even want these games to have an ‘easy’ mode if the developers design them with such a focus on tough gameplay? Going back to the world of “Dark Souls”, this can often be what attracts new players to the game: the extensive work that developer From Software did to create a truly immersive universe lets the player get on with gameplay, whilst subtly leaving flavour text and optional conversations for those who wish to learn more about the fiction. For some, the gameplay becomes

With reference to Cuphead in particular, however much it may sting to have gorgeous animation and a seductive jazz soundtrack locked behind intense platforming action, a change in mindset may be more important than a change in difficulty. For those invested less in gameplay, treat the beautiful nostalgic set pieces as a reward for accomplishing the game’s primary objective “gitt gud”.

-Harry Routley

Indie-penchant: Hob Quite simply, Hob made me feel like a child again. It dropped me into a world I knew nothing about, and left me there to follow an almost imperceptible thread.

I didn’t understand anything, except that I was there and there were places I could go, things I could interact with, a vaguely authoritative robot giving me general directions. I was never told who I was, what my purpose was, why I was doing this thing or that thing...

the metallic growl of my robot guide, if you want to count that. Hob is environmental storytelling in the rawest sense.

It was one huge, multi-layered puzzle (literally), and I was plonked there to pick up the pieces and slot them back into place. There was nothing in the way of explanation: no dialogue, no narrator, no linguistic presence whatsoever - apart from

This is how Hob teases you in, by having enough character and personality to grab your attention, to make you commit to its mystery, but not enough to guide you towards some sort of revelation.

Image Credit: Wikimedia, Studio MDHR

The main protagonist is an empty consciousness onto which I could project my own. They did have a personality, but their ethereal presence allowed me to dominate proceedings, in terms of gameplay, of course, but also perceptually as I went about understanding the world.

That’s what makes a great mystery, though, isn’t it? Something that pulls you along, drawing you along its length, on and on, closer and closer, whilst keeping that one thing that would define it all just out of reach. Finding out is always the least interesting part.

Spiritually, Hob has more in common with games like Inside or RiME, games which don’t seem to have a conceptual world, but still manage to capture our imaginations and realise such interesting and evocative environments. Hob didn’t quite inspire the same intensity of feeling I felt playing RiME or Inside, but it’s definitely one worth playing if you enjoy their brand of storytelling.

-James Nicholls

21

Gaming

Hellblade: Authentic or Contrived?

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice has sparked a lot of debate since its release in August.

Even before its release, its marketing and advertising focused on Ninja Theory’s desire to create an experience demonstrating the possible effects of psychosis. It’s certainly a bold stance to take, and, although their intentions may be admirable - in that Senua, the main protagonist, is presented in a sympathetic light – the game still raises some issues of representation.

In an article published on Polygon’s website, Dia Lacina writes about the effects of games in relation to her own experiences as a mentally ill individual; specifically the paraedolia (seeing patterns or shapes in the environment where none exist) that the game attempts to simulate through its puzzle mechanics. She asserts that her own experiences with severe mental illness were invalidated by Senua’s: I certainly agree with Dia in that the game does force you into accepting Senua’s reality. The voices in her head, the vividness of her hallucinations, the intensity of her reactions, all reinforced by the use of binaural audio, were overwhelming when I played. There was little room for my own identity, and very little space for my own experiences to filter through and inform my understanding of what was going on.

It’s hard to escape the fact that the game is designed to get us, the players, to respond in a certain way. The runes you discover in the environment are not found accidentally, they’re discovered because the developers put them there for you to find. Perhaps it’s no surprise then, that when Dia was finding patterns that were not put there by the developers, the illusion of realism began to crumble away.

The problem, at least it seems to me, is that psychosis is a term that covers a broad range of symptoms. It’s unlikely that any

22

two victims will experience identical symptoms, or that the relationship between their symptoms and their social world will ever be the same. Dia herself mentions this, how mental illness does not exist ‘in a vacuum’, and is ‘inextricable from its social context’.

Dia raises the question of whether the game gives proper treatment to this social context. When playing the game, we’re not given too much detail about Senua’s past, only fragments of it through certain visions or hallucinations. But does this, as Dia states, perpetuate ‘the harmful idea that mental illness “is all in her head”?

On some level, the game’s structure does certainly seem to do this (by the end, it becomes clear that she hasn’t really travelled anywhere), but I’m inclined to give the developers more credit.

Although Senua suffers from psychosis, and this cannot exist apart from her social context, she has also just experienced a severe psychological trauma. She is described as a victim of psychosis, but it would also be fair to say that she is suffering from PTSD. This would explain why she struggles to re-engage with her past. Her history is fraught with trauma: the abuse at the hands of her father, the destruction of her village, the loss of Dillion, her lover, as well as her mother, Galena.

When I finished playing, I read her visions, her hallucinations, her whole journey as a means of engaging and processing her traumas. It’s the Norse stories, and her construction of an hallucinatory world with them, that gives her a way to approach, and (literally) explore, her traumatic past.

read plenty of examples where people suffering from mental illness have found themselves validated, and to some degree, understood, by the way psychosis has been represented; there are others still, close relatives or friends of psychosis victims, who have found the game eye-opening, leading to the creation of a dialogue and a greater understanding of the illness.

By stating the inauthenticity of the game, isn’t Dia invalidating the experiences of those who have found insight from playing the game? My argument here isn’t that the game is authentic in its representation, but that authenticity - particularly with regards to mental illness, which often manifests itself ambiguously or paradoxically - is a matter of perspective, and cannot be thought of in relation to a sort of objective reality, or model of authenticity.

I think Hellblade can be a positive force in the gaming industry, if not society in general. I have never felt as much empathy for a fictional character as I have with Senua, and for that to have happened, she has to have seemed authentic and fullyformed as an individual. Senua is not a two-dimensional representation, but a multi-faceted individual with a prolonged history of abuse and mental illness. Senua, at least to me, is real.

-James Nicholls

Therefore, I’m inclined to disagree with Dia’s implication that Senua isn’t a ‘real and valid’ person, or that her perspective is ‘inauthentic’. Especially because I’ve Image Credit: Pixabay by OpenClipart - Vectors/27446

Television

Gunpowder: excessive violence or justified realism?

A brand-new three-part period drama, Gunpowder, hit our screens at the end of October, just in time for Bonfire Night. As the title suggests, the drama focused around the English legend of Guy Fawkes’ gunpowder plot, in which an attempt was made to blow up King James I and the Houses of Parliament.

This rendition of the gunpowder plot, however, focused on the mastermind behind the operation, Robert Catesby, played by the talented Kit Harrington.

Harrington, best known for his role as Jon Snow in Game of Thrones, played the lead and was co-executive producer of this successful BBC drama. In a recent interview, Harrington said he became involved in the show because he is a direct descendant of one of the plotters.

Episode one opens with the audience being transported to the England of 1603: Queen Elizabeth I is dead and the Scottish King, James Stuart, is crowned James I of England. Religious persecution and diplomatic ineptness are almost immediately introduced and juxtaposed, as a Protestant king attempts the removal of all English Catholics whilst seeking long-awaited peace with Catholic Spain.

The drama begins with a startling display of intensity as we see a Catholic mass taking place in the household of Robert Catesby, with the camera shifting between this scene and the unnerving approach of the King’s men. The viewer is unable to look away for a second or catch their breath as the drama unfolds from the very start with the rest of the series certainly not disappointing.

Within the first half, an hour audiences were exposed to gore quite unknown to BBC One, and it was revolting to say the least. A gruesome and prolonged ten minutes of screen time was devoted Illustration: Barbara Melo

to showing a Catholic woman being pressed to death and a priest being disembowelled. Despite being shown just after the broadcasting watershed of 9pm, and being preceeded by a warning, audiences were shocked by the display of violence on the typically family-friendly BBC One. Audiences constantly get a thrill out of violence and blood-letting in TV programmes, from the ever popular The Walking Dead to Kit Harrington’s own Game of Thrones. However, initial reviews of the show have pointed out the unnecessary display of gore.

One viewer on Twitter declared that the show ‘should come with health warnings,’ and broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, even failed to comment on the amount of direct complaints it had received following the airing of the show.

Others however, including Harrington himself, have justified the torture scene saying it was ‘important for the story,’ so that viewers could understand why Catesby embarks on the gunpowder plot. Upon further research into the show, it has been discovered that the torturing methods in the opening episode were actually fairly commonly used in seventeenth-century England.

This revelation made the display of violence even more stomachturning, but the real question is: why are audiences so appalled by this level of violence on BBC One compared to violence in TV shows by Netflix and Amazon Prime, for example?

Gunpowder as a whole was queasily entertaining, but gripping and fascinating at the same time. Put frankly, however,

it was over too soon. The story of the 5th of November is a famous one, taught consistently at this time of year in almost every primary school in England, but still shrouded in mystery.

- Evangeline Stanford

23

Television

Mindhunter: sometimes truth is stranger than fiction...

It’s another homerun for Netflix with the arrival of this intense crime drama set in America’s late seventies. Mindhunter is highly polished, full of great acting, and provides a unique twist on the crime genre. When you binge-watch the whole ten episode series, you could easily mistake it for a HBO production with its slick and serious drama, like a cleaner cut of True Detective.

It’s 1977 and Charles Manson has been in prison for six years prior: a new sort of criminality is cropping up across the States, with both local law enforcement and the FBI in a quandary over how to deal with it. The presupposition that bad people are born bad is being overturned, and Agents Holden Ford ( Jonathan Groff ) and Bill Tench (Holt McCallany) are on a new frontier of criminal profiling. The detective duo are allowed a little free rein from their boss to interview convicted killers who have killed on multiple occasions, seemingly without any motive. This was a time before the term ‘serial killer’ was coined – a change we see as a result of the pair’s research. But with most of the bad guys behind bars, as is the premise of the show, surely it gets a little boring?

Kemper (nicknamed “the co-ed killer” and perfectly portrayed by Cameron Britton), whose polite demeanour and eloquence are starkly at odds with the heinous crimes he has committed.

In fact, despite the show’s engrossing nature, it may well be a Netflix original that you should take your time with rather than binge-watch, due to its unnerving scenes and unsettling tone. Mindhunter is made all the more terrifying when you learn that it’s actually based on the memoirs of John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker, with the former being the reallife inspiration for Jack Crawford (Clarice Starling’s mentor in The Silence of the Lambs). To know that the crimes and conversations are based on real-life really won’t help you sleep any easier at night.

For all of its intense interviews and gruesome murders, Mindhunter really boils down to questions of ethics and

morality. This alone puts it ahead of all other police procedural dramas. Even our heroes start to blur the line between good and evil, a line that becomes more ambiguous as the show progresses.

It’s a show that wakes us up to the frightening truth that good and evil are rarely so binary, reminding us that good people sometimes have to do bad things to keep one step ahead of evil.

Perhaps Mindhunter is not for the faint-hearted, not merely because of the elements of gore, but also because of the sickening and unnatural ways that good and evil can reconcile themselves.

However, the show truly is another jewel in Netflix’s crown, and with season two commissioned before season one even aired, Mindhunter really isn’t to be missed.

- Jodie Bailey

Absolutuely not! Series producer David Fincher (director of Se7en, Fight Club and Gone Girl) would never let that happen. The flawless cinematography, the impeccable build-up of tension throughout, and the small cases that crop up along the way allow the agents an opportunity to employ some of their research – all of which makes for compelling viewing. The show’s characters are well-rounded, both the ambitious and idealistic Holden and world-weary Bill have their own flaws and personal problems that haunt them throughout the show. But it’s the interviews that steal the show, particularly those with Ed

24

Image: Pixabay

Television

Is it time for Doctor Who to go?

As the new Tardis team is announced for season 11 of Doctor Who, Dan Struthers and Evlyn Forsyth-Muris debate whether the show should keep regenerating or face maximum extermination…

Yes!

First of all, I want to make it clear that my argument to axe Doctor Who has nothing to do with Jodie Whittaker’s casting as the Doctor. I think this is one of the best decisions from the last five years of Nu-Who, but you can’t breathe life into something that is already dead.

Obviously this is a hyperbole for dramatic effect, but something feels like it’s been missing from the show since fan favourite David Tennant handed over the Tardis key to his successor. It’s missing that spark that made fans proud to be a ‘Whovian’.

but it feels inevitable that he will be the goofy sidekick making dad jokes before ultimately being paired up as love interest to Whittaker’s Doctor, who is almost half his age in real life.

As much as I love Doctor Who, I cannot help but feel that it should take a lesson from the classic series in the 80s, which due to lack of interest was put to sleep for a while. Axing Doctor Who and bringing it back in five or ten years’ time may sound like sacrilege but this could be the best thing that has happened to the show following the fairly lukewarm series of late. After all, you never realise how much you love something until you lose it.

- Dan Struthers

When hearing that Chris Chibnall would be taking over as showrunner, the general consensus seemed to be a ‘meh’ rather than one of excitement. Chibnall is a fine writer but the BBC have chosen to go with a safe and bankable presence, having acted as a showrunner and writer for Broadchurch, rather than recruiting fresh blood and giving the show the shot in the arm it so desperately needs.

Let us not forget that Russell T. Davies, who brought the show back in 2005, was primarily known for his gay drama Queer as Folk. Many people thought this was a terrible choice but his take on the show was fresh while building on the original formula, making the show the worldwide success it is today.

No!

For every bit of good that casting the first female Doctor did, recent news that Bradley Walsh will be her companion has undone this progress. Walsh, best known for his giggling fits on daytime TV when someone says the word ‘sausage’ or ‘fanny’, feels like the odd one out when looking at the otherwise young and diverse cast. By no means should his age, sex or ethnicity be anything to pick him out on,

Doctor Who is set to return to our screens this Christmas for the farewell of 12th doctor, Peter Capaldi. After a few decent but somewhat bland series’, some people are suggesting it’s time for the show to be axed. Whilst I think we can all agree that Moffat is long overdue to leave after seven years as show-runner, I do believe that to get rid of the show is far too hasty.

There are big changes coming to the new

Image: Pixabay

series, which is set to air in autumn 2018; not only a new Doctor but a new gender of Doctor. Despite a lot of backlash, I think Chibnall made the right call. Jodie Whittaker is a great actor and she did a marvellous job in Broadchurch. I for one am certain she will bring something new and exciting to the role.

The 13th Doctor won’t be alone however, and will be joined by not one but three new companions, played by Bradley Walsh (Graham), Tosin Cole (Ryan) and Mandip Gill (Yasmin). Although the casting of Bradley Walsh is certainly interesting we shouldn’t judge the casting director’s choice - they saw the audition and we didn’t, so let’s wait and see! I am also very pleased that the diversity in the show didn’t stop with a female doctor: we now have two people of colour occupying spaces in the Tardis. Doctor Who is ultimately a family show and it’s wonderful to have a good representation for all the kids watching.

Chibnall has already breathed so much life into the show and he’s only aired one minute of Doctor Who: the reveal of Jodie Whittaker! One of the best things about Doctor Who is the blossoming of characters as they are shown all manner of amazing things, combined with how they deal with the strain it has on their own lives, something Chibnall has already done in writing Amy and Rory’s penultimate story ‘The Power of Three’.

So far we have had a long run with little change, but the show should regenerate not just with each new doctor but with each new series and episode. It’s a part of our culture, history and so many people’s childhoods; to give up on it without giving it the opportunity of a fresh start would be not only a waste but a disservice to all the children for whom this might be their first series.

- Evlyn Forsyth-Muris

25

Norwich’s Biggest Night 22.30-03.00 Every Saturday

Drinks // Double Vodka & Red Bull // £4 VK // 2 for £4 Jungbomb // £2.50 + specials every week

Tickets //

£5 (stbf) advance via www.uea.su // £6 on the door

In The LCR // The A-List Residents - Will Momentum

Playing the biggest Chart // Pop // Dance

In The Hive // A-Xtra Residents - Upesh // DJ KAV

Playing the best in RnB // Hip Hop // Grime

In Blue Bar // Play-List Resident - DJ Mediate

Playing UK Bass // House // Garage // Drum & Bass

The A List Norwich’s Biggest Night

#ALIST

22.30-03.00 Every Saturday

C. writing

The smallest den The last room of hell, with moist walls and covered windows.

A little television buzzes and three creatures huddle in front.

They browse the channels, and amongst the swirling mass of crime, and hospital drama, they gorge on moments of death – The throat’s final release, of thick fear and questions.

Was it worth it?

Should they care?

She stares at her creations.

These empty creatures might agree.

In old Utopia they had choice, and repetition was fictitious.

Yet in this final cave some kind of truth was caught amongst the scraps of television.

A rhythmic cruelty.

The creatures watched how their lies began.

That these people were turning into creatures too fuelled their thirst, which swung between this old truth and the new love: a final open cave,

A daughter weeps at her apparent uselessness.

In the tight hole at the end of Hell they accept their proximity to Earth.

Death: the happy hour.

The silly season springs death as its sweet libation.

CUT ME LOOSE, the third creature wails.

Away on another journey, when we had choice.

To choose seclusion.

They will return – no surprise – they’ll return.

Battered people; chunks of my blood.

At the death of the country and when the creatures woke – a faded stranger, obscured by the vegetation, sat whispering at the dark morning.

- C. E. Matthews

and how your happy lips spread wide.

I thought you forgot to blink or squeeze my fingers or flick your eyes between us.

We strive to dip our toes in the darkness together, and lock the door for tomorrow’s opening.

Dark inertia festers.

Foxgloves and nightshades seem open and offering.

A father cries out at the clouds.

Images: credit to Bunnings Warehouse; Flickr, SigNot Cloud

27

Perspective My father always told me, Although I have no fears, never go in the attic, Which only boasted my intrigue.

For amongst abandoned talents what could there be To make him so erratic?

My father still won’t tell me.

A ghost, I’d trap under a white sheet Disguise what might be traumatic To boast my own intrigue.

A spider, I’d use my father’s shoe to see If showing him the stain would make fear less automatic.

My father still won’t tell me.

I fear it’s not the attic, but me,

C. writing

The fool of autumn

A symbiotic melody of two life forces, intertwined by the product of love.

Though you were small, you were mighty.

We buckled under your grandness, for who and what, could fill the cavities you left at your wake?

You were the vision of elegance, time kept it autumn.

The illusion of an evergreen façade evaded us all in the end.

Resting on your back, I counted your rings of life and willed for more.

You weakened yourself by gifting others with oxygen.

The tendrils that you had deeply rooted within me are nothing but a decaying mass, as everything suffocates in your absence.

The stillness was haunting.

If I noticed the fruiting body of the fungus, perhaps I could have made a deal with the rain.

Callus and thawed. What had time done to you?

If time could spare a second, perhaps he would have realised the magnitude of his actions.

How he discarded a pure vessel who had endured agonising blisters and the frozen pangs of the wind, with restricting cells that no longer live.

You nurtured saplings like me, and your vitality inspired me to unfurl.

Life pressured me to witness a once great force, stripped bare by an all consuming parasitic disease.

You promised me you would remain evergreen, but all I saw was a human.

- Scarlet Francis

Years keep him increasingly static

Chance

Years steal the boast from my intrigue.

Years left a darkness crammed with memories, Stole the man I loved for his fear of the attic.

My father, rest in peace, always begged me Never look, yet never lose your childish intrigue.

- Ellie Reeves

28

I looked at you as if to say

Dangling free and peering ‘round and

I’d let you crawl inside my head

I, desiring all those choices.

to perch upon my memories.

That innocent choice of freedom.

From your pupils to the mountains –

They strolled past and I asked again.

I had to look away, bemused.

I thought you didn’t understand.

The kittens from their mother’s mouth

Is it freedom in your pupils?

were hanging helpless by their necks.

And was I so ignorant of you?

- C. E. Matthews Image: Credit to 123RF, hermione13

C. writing

I can’t watch Inception anymore I have written about JJ before, and I’ve spoken about him too. In public, at an open mic night. I thought that would have flushed him out of my system, like sweating out alcohol, but he hasn’t gone away. I’m not traumatised by the loss of what might have been, but I am stranded at a troubling midway place. I am happy because, for one night, I caught something perfect in my hands – and I am sad because, for one night, I caught something perfect in my hands. Perfection is bereft of permanence, and instead must be immortalised by memory. I have kept JJ alive, but he isn’t real. He’s not really with me, not in front of me, just an animated memory. I have kept him alive but I have not kept hold of him.

To make it plain, JJ was a boy I went home with on a night out in Berlin, in September. I met him at a gay bar called Bassy’s and he took me back to his apartment. He was twenty-four, and he was perfect. That is all I want you to know at this point because, as I said, I have written about him before and the feelings I captured then were sharp and painful and beautiful. I do not want to repeat myself because I feel that the clarity of his image will dissolve with overuse, like polishing a diamond with sandpaper.

He took me home and we had sex. Later, morning. The ecstatic motion of the night softened into blurry fatigue, so he played a DVD. He had a small selection of films in English: I chose Inception. He supported this choice, he said it helped him sleep (a film about dreams helping you sleep, go figure). I like Inception, it’s a good film.

I liked Inception, because I can’t actually watch it anymore.

There’s a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character visits a memory: his wife in a hotel room. She has been locked in this room, locked in the lower recesses of his consciousness, and she is embittered and furious and anguished by his sudden arrival and chases him out of the room.

“You promised!” she screams, “You promised! You said we’d be together, you said we’d grow old together!” screaming as she rattles the metal shutters of the elevator.

I was given no promises. JJ said nothing about us being together, and of course it couldn’t happen – as far as that open relationship might extend, he had nevertheless been married for three years. I was welcome in his bed but not in his life. I was given no promises. It is the image of watching this woman shriek through elevator shutters, her hair tumbling across her eyes, that promise of growing old together, watching it while I listen to JJ breathe on my shoulder, asleep, feeling his breath over my skin as I run my hand across his warm hard thigh, lying next to him, feeling his hair pressed into my own, the smell of his sweat and the taste of his mouth and beer and weed on my tongue, and I compile these small sensory fragments into a film in my mind, as loud as the DVD playing in front of us, all of it constructed by my awareness of the night as a small finite shard of perfection, an awareness that this experience will soon become memory, that as glorious as all this is it won’t last, and while I am lying beside him as he sleeps as the DVD plays, I know that none of this can be repeated — and this is why I can no longer watch Inception.

- Liam Heitman-Rice

Into the night

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. BANG. Thump. BANG. BANG. Thump. Thump. Thump. BOOM. The rhythm of my heart coincides with the rhythm of my feet as I move like lightning up the eerie stairs. My sweaty palms glide over the metal banisters, and I urge my feet to tread faster and faster – pulling myself higher and higher. CRASH. The noise of my assailant brings me back to a harsh reality. I turn quickly, at risk, knowing I could disturb the pace of my run, to catch a glimpse of this predator. His black hat, black suit, black shoes, merge in to one blurred mass of gloom. A disfigured blotch of darkness. He darts in and out of my mind, my senses, my vision, as if he is seeping in to me. I will my mind to keep going. My legs lag, my feet lag, my breath becomes sparse and the intake of the cold, still air feels like my attacker has caught me. He is stabbing me over and over again in my dry throat.

Maybe the blood will quench my thirst. I rid this image from my mind. The door at the top of the stairs swamps my vision and, leaping over the last three steps, I grab on to the door handle. Twist. Push. I fall through the door and on to the ground. A deep breath. I lift my head to see that the shadowed man isn’t behind me anymore. He’s all around me.

- Saoirse Smith-Hogan Image: Credit to Wikipedia Commons, alipourvaghar

29

Pod-CAST YOUR VOTEs Venue reveals their favourites

Welcome to Night Vale A deliciously creepy podcast that has been going, bimonthly, since 2012. The 20 minute long episodes are presented like a radio programme and narrated by the host ‘Cecil Baldwin’.

Sections include community calender, traffic and the weather but not as we know them. Over the years you learn to love the characters and the bizarre goings on in the town of Nightvale. Just don’t go into the dog park.

-Alex Millard

My dad wrote a porno This might be the only podcast I can say that I’ve ever binge listened to. Jamie Morton hosts this series, and put simply it’s just him reading out chapters from the ‘erotic’ novels that his 60-year-old dad has naively written, whilst he and his friends (Alice Levine and James Cooper) shred it to pieces.

E.g, he writes: “Her nipples hardened with her feeling and they were now as large as the three inch rivets which had held the hull of the fateful Titanic together.” And I promise you, there are much better quotes from it than that. With the added bonus of guest stars like Daisy Ridley and Elijah Wood, the jokes somehow manage to never grow old.

-Emily Mildren

No Such Thing as a Fish

What do the researchers for QI get up to in their spare time?

This! In No Such Thing as a Fish, the team that spends their working hours finding out interesting facts for the T.V. programme get to share some of the weird and quirky titbits of information that they come across in their hunt for knowledge. With an equal mix of facts and funny, this podcast is the ultimate listen for people who love acquiring random knowledge.

Just don’t expect an appearance from Stephen Fry or Sandi Toksvig.

-Tom Bedford Image credits: Nightvale-Intergalactic Robot, artur coelho, Serial-Wikimedia Commons, Casey Fliesler, Fish - pixabay by manseoek

Alice isn’t dead

I came across this series while severely hungover in first year; ‘Alice Isn’t Dead’ is an incredible continuous story of a woman looking for her missing wife, told in an audio diary style. Keisha desperately criss-crosses through the country, discovering eerie corners of small town America along the way. I was soon completely taken in by Keisha’s harrowing quest for truth, hangover (almost) forgotten as I listened to her encounter shapeless omelette-eating monsters, lost orphans, and inhuman traffic cops.

-Hattie Griffiths

uncanny county

Going on a sort of Twilight Zone model, Uncanny County is a series podcast made up of individual stories with different scenarios and characters in each one. This podcast also stands out, as the stories, though centred around a general ‘horror’ theme, are often told with more of a sense of humour than your typical broadcast in that genre. Listen out for The Eleventh Hour and Coulrophobia, two episodes that don’t pull any punches. The show is currently halfway -Hattie Griffiths through its second season.

Serial Credited with imbuing podcasts with the recent popularity that they seem to have, Serial was a massive success upon release.

An intricate peice of investigative journalism, it explored the 1999 murder of a high-school student in America and questioned the assumed answers surrounding the case. Subsequent series have investigated newer cases with the same level of detail and scrutiny.

-Tom Bedford

the Banging book club

Headed by Youtubers Hannah Witton, Lucy Moon and Leena Norms the Banging Book Club is a monthly podcast where the three discuss books about sex and gender. Along with the book discussions - which you can take part in on the podcast’s Goodreads page – they chat about broader topics such as intersectional feminism, LGBT+ Britain and film adaptations. With a diverse range of adult, YA and even nonfiction books such as The Game, The Virgin Suicides and Come As You Are this is a chatty, informative and frequently hilarious podcast that deals with big issues whilst feeling like a good time with your mates.

-Lois Acari

30

E V E R Y f r i d ay the waterfront

ERE INHE T ARE H OKS AND ON ES O C E S YM E IT TH F H T R , U S O G IV THEIR ITH SON N EXCLUS MIC WT, PLUS A REET! G A & CH MEET &

A L P O HO S SENT

S SUE’

E SE PR HOU

FRIDAY 17TH NOVEMBER

THE LCR

PARTY TUNES ALL NIGHT LONG WITH DJ RYAN IN THE LCR SOUL FUNK & DISCO IN THE BLUE BAR WITH THE COLLEGE ST SPINNERS VKS 2 FOR £4 / JUNGBOMBS £2.50 (NOW SERVED WITH RELENTLESS / DOUBLE SMIRNOFF & MIXER £3.50 / CORKYS £1

22:30 - 03:00 £4.50 ADV

TICKETS - UEA.SU

room two // rock-it! playing pop-punk, rock & alternative