I’m sitting on a sofa in UEA Sportspark overlooking a mass of students celebrating graduation. Opposite me is the world-famous actor Bernard Hill. The contrast is stark and it takes me a moment to adjust. Hill is known for roles such as Théoden in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Captain Edward Smith in Titanic, the Warden…
Jake Gyllenhaal: Building character through details
When Jake Gyllenhaal describes his acting process, it is as such ‘I have an intention… I have an action, and then everything is up in the air after that, and anything can go down.’ That is what makes him so special, every performance is so incredibly layered, and the characters are not basic caricatures but…
Review: Stacy at London’s Etcetera Theatre
Inkwell Productions set up by UEA students Seàn Bennett and Keelan Swift-Stalley with their friend Ruby Lambert, staged Jack Thorne’s Stacy, at Etcetera Theatre, London. Ned Caderni and Caoimhe Blair both made their debuts, in producing and directing respectively. The one-man play follows Rob, played by Peter Hardingham. In his twenties and working as a…
Oscar Bait: The Death of Cinema?
The Academy Awards, or more simply known as Oscars, were first awarded in 1929, and now their 91st annual ceremony is right around the corner. Awards are given out for the year’s best film, acting, directing, writing, editing, cinematography… and the list goes on. Despite the Academy’s “dedication” to the filmmaking art, the real cultural…
Pornography: art or not?
Pornography: it’s a presentation of sex most people will have come across at some point. The question is how this presentation differs from the wide array of sexual material found in popular culture – in particular, film. When films like Blue Is the Warmest Colour depict sex scenes that wouldn’t look out of place on…
Upcoming: Peddling at the Maddermarket Theatre
Official figures released in early 2018 showed that almost 5,000 people sleep rough across England every year, and that the number has increased with 169 percent in less than a decade. This acute issue is rarely addressed within the cultural world, which makes Harry Melling’s play Peddling so arresting. The hour-long one-man show, which will…
Norwich Film Festival Shorts
The Norwich Film Festival showcased an array of 14 film shorts last weekend and these are my top picks, perfect for young and old adults alike: The weekend kicked off with Catch of the Day, an Irish independent film about a husband coping with the fact his wife is dying. The movie seamlessly juxtaposes bleakness…
Christopher Eccleston
This year’s Norwich Film Festival kicked off in style with a screening of Danny Boyle’s deliciously dark 1994 debut film Shallow Grave, followed by star Christopher Eccleston in conversation with The Guardian’s chief film critic Peter Bradshaw. The first actor to step into the role when the series was rebooted in 2005, a certain percentage…
Costume Design for the Big Screen
Despite the fact that I was sat at the very back of the room, and the lack of a microphone meant I found it very difficult to hear what was being said, I really enjoyed the sold out ‘Costume Design for the Big Screen’ Q&A with Glyn Dillon, the fashion designer who worked on The…
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