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Day: 10 January 2016

The New Year’s realistic resolutions

Written by Sophie Soar on . Posted in Fashion & Beauty.

The turkey was stuffed and the wine was drunk, the mince pies were filled and the pudding was lit. Nobody cares about just one more chocolate, or the turkey sandwiches, curries, and pies to finish the last morsel, mouthful and crumb…

The end of the festivities is a saddening time as we say goodbye to our relatives and holiday leave, to rediscover life responsibilities and the long lost sports bra at the back of the cupboard. The new tidings bring New Year’s Resolutions with the motivational jogging pants to facilitate such challenges.

However, at The Mancunion, we foresee all realistic outcomes. So for the resolutions that last (the compulsory minimum of) five days, we recommend some multi-purpose sportswear that can integrate further into your daily wardrobe aside from the sporadic jog around the park.

The ever-increasing range of sportswear is so loved when half price in the January sales to coincide with the end of January exams. To celebrate appropriately, look no further than Nike’s fluorescent sports bras or Fabletics’ Tribal Knot Bra for the ideal clubbing undergarments.

For those smarter occasions, complement your formal attire with Missguided’s rose bodysuit, or simply treat yourself to their Active Printed teal runner shorts to wear whilst recharging energy levels on the sofa with a much needed cuppa.

In the words of Carrie Bradshaw, “shopping is my cardio.” So if the dumbbells and weights, cross trainers, or rowing machines fail to enthuse you, shut down your Internet and return to shopping the old fashioned way.

Spectre & Speculation: Where will Radiohead go next?

Written by Jay Plent on . Posted in Music.

With the Christmas release of their rejected Bond theme ‘Spectre’, now seems as good a time as any to speculate on what Radiohead’s eagerly awaited follow-up to 2011’s The King Of Limbs will sound like. 

Radiohead are famed for taking daring and inventive sidesteps in their music, so naturally, when a band as diversified in their interests re-assembles after a nearly 5 year hiatus, there’s bound to be some shake-up. 

The possibilities following TKOL—a short, down-tempo affair scattered with electronic stutterings—seem endless. So where will Radiohead go next? What fresh musical indulgence will they deliver us?

This is my speculation; Radiohead are unlikely to continue with the folk-electronic feel of TKOL, primarily because Thom Yorke has been pursuing that with Atoms For Peace and his recent Bit-torrent release Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, and frankly doing so with far more finesse than on TKOL. There’s little chance of them returning to any OK Computer-era guitar rock (although it’s rumoured they’re re-working an old song called ‘Lift’ from that period), as the band have moved beyond such trivial attachments, and Thom Yorke is on record as saying that he hates rock music.

An untrained eye would suggest, then, that we’ve been given little clue as to where the next album will take Radiohead; not so.

Jonny Greenwood has been spending a significant amount of time with The London Contemporary Orchestra, and composing for films such as Inherent Vice. The conceptual pieces he has been creating for these projects could influence the next Radiohead album, especially given that the band recently shared images of them in the studio with a full orchestra.

Though the band’s use of orchestral instruments is not new, we should return, not just to ‘Spectre’, but also to their second most recent song ‘The Daily Mail’. Both of these tracks, unlike TKOL, feature a far more organic collection of instruments, prominent piano, horns and strings. They sound brooding, dramatic and natural, almost filmic.

As mentioned, this is pure speculation, but I believe the band are going to go in the direction of their most recent releases: A more gentle and growth-driven sound rooted in classical instruments, but given a contemporary twist. As a band with such expertise at crafting the most heartbreaking of music, it would be a natural fit to their talents. It’s also a style the band could sit in perfectly, given that they are aging (though gracefully, I should add). This isn’t to say that the band will totally abandon sampling and electronic elements, that’d be a tragedy, but I suspect they’ll be more in the foreground than centre stage.

Of course, this is merely conjecture. Only time will tell whether Radiohead follow through with another gorgeously rich album, or whether, in his spare time, Thom Yorke has got really into acid house…

Review: Animal Farm

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Theatre.

On Wednesday night, having ventured far beyond the all-too-familiar Fallowfield/Oxford Road corridor, I journeyed home with three peculiarly similar thoughts on my mind. As I considered how I could sum up the show I had seen at Ziferblat Café, I couldn’t stop thinking that:

a) I am a film student who has never seen The Godfather (1972);
b) I am a drama student who has never seen The Tempest;
c) I am an English student who has never read Animal Farm.

Suffice to say, having been thoroughly entertained by the Drama Society’s latest ‘Autumn Showcase’, I feel a telling urge to change the final of those three facts.

For that was what the stage version of Animal Farm seemed to do, it tantalised its audience with an enthralling and (especially, given recent political manoeuvres in our country’s foreign policy) highly appropriate story. Director Monique Touko opted to stage George Orwell’s familiar allegorical tale, where horn and hoof become hammer and sickle, in accordance with Nelson Bond’s 1961 adaptation. A story of revolution against the tyrannous humans leading to the birth and eventual decay of ‘Animalism’, the script certainly felt like a challenge, yet one that was wholeheartedly pulled off.

Touko and producer Lily Ashton deserve extensive praise for putting on this particularly chilling play with a palpable degree of restraint. It felt as though the script could have fallen into hyperbole quite easily, yet it was testament to the strength of their production that it in no way did. In what felt like an adherence to the theatrical mantra of ‘less is more’, the set was bare, the performances were understated, the lighting and sound were quietly sinister and the audience was on edge throughout. This was crucial in solidifying the plot’s dark and otherworldly feel, which might have been lost with too heavy-handed an approach.

When animalised communist workers talk about how old they are at age eleven, when they react with shock to others putting on clothes, when they describe the tyranny of humans who sleep in beds, the reaction could be comical. Yet the eerie atmosphere of the production, and indeed the entire studio space in which it was staged, ensured that the strength of Orwell’s original text was carried.

Despite this, I felt that in some ways the play itself wasn’t fully trusted. The decision to set the action amidst the 1984 – 85 miners’ strike, with references to contemporary politicians and slogans at the beginning and end of the show, for me, didn’t work. I felt that the allegory clouded the issues being discussed and, with some of the cast, the accents that were adopted got in the way of very strong performances. Touko and her production team clearly felt the need to highlight the relevance of the narrative, yet I felt as though the play would have succeeded in doing this based on its own merit. Nevertheless, with standout performances from the entire cast (to such a degree that I cannot specify anyone for individual praise) this was a strong and very enjoyable play. What more could I have expected from the same team behind A Number, which took place around the same time last year?

Review: Inkheart

Written by Hannah Foy on . Posted in Theatre.

HOME presents its first Christmas production with the opening of Inkheart. The production is a transformation of Cornelia Funke’s novel. Family friendly, full of humour and all the imagination of a child, this is a show to catch this festive season as an alternative to the pantomime.

The tale follows Meggie and her father Mo as the ink of the words of the books they’ve loved and looked after appear to have bled into the real world. Capricorn, known as the ‘baddest of bad guys’ is on the hunt for every remaining copy of Inkheart to ensure that he does not have to return to his world. Yet, there’s a further twist, as Meggie’s mother appears to have been transported and trapped inside Inheart’s book world. With a range of characters stuck in a world that they don’t belong in, it’s only Mo—the famous ‘Silvertongue’—who can attempt to put the world back in order. Following Mo, Meggie and her Aunt Elinor jump from England, to France and then Italy. The three embark on their mission to save Inkheart, and beat the bad guys.

It’s clearly a child-directed performance, but I did enjoy being taken back to my world of imagination of bad versus good and a quest of a story. The tale was cleverly self aware, with intertextuality twisted through the story’s narrative and re-emerging onto stage. The school group at the front of the theatre greatly enjoyed the interaction of the cast as they helped direct them to Capricorn. Mo himself appeared on my row in search of Fenoglio, the author of Inkheart, bringing the stage closer to the audience and carrying us into the story.

The stage transformed fittingly to each new narrative of the performance; a tremendous pile of books one moment, to a beach the next, before hiding Capricorn’s evil liar beneath it. Katherine Carlton, who played Meggie, was passionate, determined and brilliant in her portrayal, holding the stage and delivering the tale. The cast were eager, believable and amusing, capturing many laughs from the audience while portraying a range of traits, lives and passions.