Here we go again!

for LGBT+ people, with many young queer people gravitating towards dark academia. However, this romanticised ideal of past scholarship can be dangerous, promoting Eurocentricity and elitism. The aesthetic overwhelmingly centres around white people, with ethnic minorities rarely included due to the central focus on Western history and Eurocentric literature. Moreover, it embraces the aesthetics of the elite, celebrating ‘old money’, elite universities and private schools. It promotes the illusion that the only ‘acceptable’ academia is that which occurs within prestigious institutions such as Oxbridge and the Ivy League, demoralising those who cannot afford to attend university and ultimately reinforcing the connection between wealth, intelligence and scholarship which continues to be harmful in academic circles.

Minty, Arts and Lit Editor, discusses the West End actor strikes

that West End performers want a pay rise.

The UK’s West End is supposed to be the pinnacle of a performer’s career; after years of training and expenses at drama school, to end up at the West End is a performer’s dream, and for many, their goal. When reaching the most esteemed place a performer can get to in the UK, one would not expect performers to have to work a second job just to cover basic living expenses, yet that is the position of over half of the people working in the West End. Despite this, ticket prices in the West End have soared in the past four years, increasing 21.3 per cent percent since

2019. With this profit of capital going to theatres and producers, and not performers, many have taken to Twitter to express their outrage at the situation; one performer saying that they got £8 to go on as an understudy in the ‘featured ensemble’ in 2019 in one of the West End’s biggest shows. You’d get more per hour working at a supermarket, which disregards the specialist training that is needed to undertake these roles in the West End. With the cost of living going up, these wages aren’t sustainable for performers, who are forced to live in the UK’s most expensive city if they want to appear on the West End.

Another said that she earned more as Broadway ensemble than a principal in the West End. Although it seems farcical, many cannot afford to buy tickets for the shows they’re performing in. After the pandemic, which showed the importance of culture as many of us turned to recorded versions of theatre to keep us entertained in lockdown, our best performers should be treated better. The ‘Stand Up for 17%’ campaign is fully justified; I hope the performers and theatre staff get what they’re asking for. Live theatre is magical, and it should not be taken for granted.