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Day: 30 October 2017

‘Vivid’ Dreams and Developments

Written by Mancunion on . Posted in Food & Drink.

Let’s talk about development. Developments in the food critic world, developments in the student union, and developments in east Manchester.

Marina O’Loughlin has stepped into the shoes of the late, great, AA Gill. Perhaps the most accomplished voice in food writing, AA Gill has left some sizeably large shoes to fill, but if there was ever anyone for the job it is O’Loughlin. The Guardian’s loss is The Sunday Time’s gargantuan gain.

Her first review for the Sunday Times came out on the 15th and was accompanied by a small list that contained five of her favourite restaurants, one of which was Manchester’s own Siam Smiles. The northern Thai restaurant and supermarket is indeed one of Manchester’s finest, and Thai food is what was on offer at Vivid Lounge, the subject of this week’s review, but more on that later.

So, the ground floor of the Student’s Union. Isn’t it great when a large amount of money is spent on making something distinctly worse? A source that wishes to remain anonymous has told The Mancunion that foot-traffic is down 50 per cent since the development took place.

This should come as no surprise as what was a perfectly fine cafe and an adjacent shop is now a vacuous hole of confusion and slowly served coffee. I mean, who the hell masterminded this operation? This indoor land of garden sheds pleases no one, student cafe satisfaction is at an all-time low, and the coffee drinkers of the world are on strike.

Anyway, moving on, next to Ancoats in east Manchester is a part of town called New Islington, but might also be called Ardwick, depending on when you moved there. I’d never heard of New Islington until I moved there, but it comes across as an example of a development gone right.

New Islington is one of the seven Millennium Communities Programme areas. Funding for the area was secured in 2002 and property developers Urban Splash have been at the forefront of developments. Some of the blocks of flats are nicer than others, but the renovated mills outlined by the canals are beautiful.

Sadly it doesn’t have the retail units of Ancoats. There’s a Costa and a Dominoes, but the one thing it does have is Vivid Lounge. Sounds like a shit club, but is actually cafe/restaurant bar amalgamation that serves it’s community wonderfully.

Mr Damp Sock himself joined me to try it out, sadly we went during a menu change period, thus a few items weren’t available. Damp Sock and I are trying to get our food podcast off the ground so we came back after eating and recorded ourselves talking about Vivid Lounge, here is part of that conversation transcribed:

Felix:  I think the first thing is, when you look at the menu, you expect Thai food, and you realise they do breakfast.

Damp Sock (aka Joe): Yeah I know, and not Thai breakfast either.

F: Do you know what Thai breakfast is?

J: Ummm…

F: Because you’ve been to that part of the world haven’t you?

J: I have been to that part of the world, but I just ate noodles for breakfast. I don’t know that if that’s just because I was trying to get into the culture, or maybe it was just… it was just me. I feel like they have a kind of continental breakfast, where the bread’s kind of a little bit sweet.

F: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

J: And they have like… not cheese, but… lots of fruit actually.

F: Hmmm.

J: …and sweet bread.

F: Mmm hmm.

J: …and strange butter.

F: Is that for westerners or is it something they eat?

J: Erm… I would say, no, I would say a lot of people eat like fruit.

F: Either way, Vivid is trying to do a very Anglican breakfast. They have a big breakfast menu. Maybe it’s a financial thing. They don’t get much lunch trade. Dinner is popular. It’s a bar. But they need to do the breakfast thing.

J: The breakfast thing — it looked good. It’s strange having the breakfast menu next to a bunch of curries and Thai dishes.

F: It was a good menu.

 

RIP AA Gill.

RIP the Old Student’s Union.

 

149A Great Ancoats St, Manchester M4 6DH

 

University of Manchester suffer second defeat

Written by Sam Cooper on . Posted in Sport.

Following the disappointment of their 4-0 away loss at Newcastle last week, University of Manchester’s Mens 1st team were looking to bounce back with their first home tie of the season against Liverpool John Moores. The Armitage welcomed the players along with an overcast sky, but there was no threat of actual rain.

The game started as an even contest, both teams struggling to get maintain possession, with many long balls being played forward. The first effort of the game came from Manchester’s number 8 but he could only direct it over.

The majority of Manchester’s attacking threat was coming from the number 10 who was occupying the right flank. His pace was allowing him to get in behind the Liverpool fullback, and a good cross was causing them trouble.

Number 5 was also proving an attacking outlet for Manchester. First, his long-range effort was deflected for a corner and moments later he dragged another attempt wide of the left post.

After a spell of Manchester domination, Liverpool finished the first half strongly. Creating chances through their number four and number seven. But like Manchester, these openings were more half-chances than clear goalscoring opportunities.

The half time whistle blew at 0-0 with both sides reasonably content with what they had seen.

The second half was a different affair entirely. Liverpool started with an urgency that both teams were lacking in the first period and grew into the game as it went on. The goalkeeper was forced to make a great instinctive save after Liverpool’s number ten fired a shot goal bound. The close-range effort came from near to the penalty spot and the keeper did exceptionally well to push it wide.

Manchester were finding it increasingly difficult to maintain possession as Liverpool picked up their pressing efforts. The away side were forcing Manchester into giving away the ball easily whether that was through misplaced passes on the ground or overly ambitious long ball attempts.

Liverpool’s pressure and overall second half performance were rewarded in the 70th minute as they got the game’s only goal. Their number 8 turned in the penalty box and fired his effort low into the bottom right corner. The speed of the ball from such a close proximity meant the keeper had no chance of keeping it out. The away side took the lead and you have to say it was deserved for their second-half performance.

With time running out, Liverpool marshalled the game well. Slowing down play and making it difficult for Manchester to gain any momentum in their quest for an equaliser. The travelling team saw out the final stages of the match to take three points back to Merseyside.

It was a disappointing defeat for Manchester as they find themselves bottom of the Northern 1A table. They look to bounce back on Wednesday with an away trip to Liverpool Hope.

Men need an alternative to the toxic men’s rights movement

Written by Sam Glover on . Posted in Opinion.

Why is it that every advocate of so-called ‘men’s rights’ is a person with odious views who says odious things? The issues being talked about don’t seem to naturally lend themselves to people with odious views: reducing stigma around male mental health, helping boys who are struggling in school, helping men who have suffered sexual abuse, and so on.

But it might as well be one of those glib adages like Godwin’s Law or Poe’s Law, maybe something like this: every man who purports to be interested in tackling the difficulties that men face as a result of how society thinks about gender will inevitably turn out to believe and say vile things about women.

It’s odd because the reverse isn’t true at all. Women who campaign on improving women’s rights and almost always thoughtful and empathetic. The trope about radical feminists hating men has never had borne relation to reality.

It’s slightly depressing though because a movement to think about the way that society thinks about gender and how it negatively affects men could be a really helpful one. In fact, a lot of the claims that ‘Men’s Rights Activists’ make are true and important: there is a mental health crisis among men that is largely a result of the widespread belief that men should be stoic and indomitable.

Working class boys are facing an uphill battle to do well in school, and that’s partially as a result of the way that the education system isn’t designed with their interests in mind. Men who are sexually abused do find it difficult to speak out, especially if they were abused by a woman.

But when these messages are delivered from behind an anonymous Twitter handle — that also tweets about conspiracies to poison the water supply with oestrogen as part of a plot to feminise men — they lose the force that they ought to have.

If you stumble onto a men’s rights forum online, you would be forgiven for coming away with the impression that the greatest threats to the well-being of men in the 21st Century are government initiatives to end the gender pay gap. Articles are posted with titles like ‘the gender pay gap is the most outrageous lie of the modern era’, and ‘when accounting for the choices that men and women make, women actually earn more than men for the same work’.

These articles are filled with bogus arithmetic and statistical legerdemain that, if you aren’t neurotic and vigilant about the misuse of statistics — as most of us aren’t —, you are likely to be taken in by.

Whether or not the claims made by Men’s Rights Activists about the gender pay gap are true (they aren’t), the important takeaway from these online message boards is that the people claiming to care about improving the wellbeing of men who are suffering actually aren’t interested in that at all. What they are interested in is beating down feminists and working against the rights of women, rather than promoting the interests of men.

So, I feel as though I have a duty to call upon men who don’t have odious views or do odious things to denounce the vile ‘Men’s rights movement’ and start a decent alternative. There are plenty of young men who take to online message boards to say horrible things about the women they know — as well as women they’ve never met.

Where does this anger all come from? I think it’s mainly a result of a lot of young men who are anxious about their future, who are feeling that protections are being afforded to other groups — women, ethnic minorities, transgender people, etc. — that aren’t being afforded to them.

For the most part, the vile things that they say aren’t a result of hatred, but of fear and insecurity. An alternative movement that really focused on addressing the causes of that insecurity would be useful both in helping alienated young men with their problems and reducing the appeal of extremist anti-women rhetoric.

There are some groups that are already doing valuable work in addressing the issues that men have without being bundled up with a load of bile. CALM, the campaign against living miserably, has done loads of excellent work on helping men suffering from mental illness, and of reducing the stigma for men with mental health problems.

There are also feminist groups who try and explore how the patriarchy can be detrimental to men as well as women. But I think that there’s still a lack of a real movement that is run by men, for men, to help address social issues that affect men without making women the enemy and resorting to lazy caricatures of every feminist as a pimpled, pink-haired virago.

Maybe if such a movement existed, the existing Men’s Rights Movement would shrivel up and poof out of existence like it ought to, but I won’t hold my breath.

Review: We Are Ian

Written by Georgia Carney on . Posted in Theatre.

As you walk into the theatre, immediately you are bombarded with the sound of rave music combined with a flashing, neon: “We Are Ian”. Taking a seat, you are apprehensive of what is to come. 45 minutes later, dancing on the stage with your fellow audience members, it takes a moment to process the pure crazy genius that you have just encountered.

The three actresses, In Bed With My Brother’s Kat Cory, Dora Lynn, and Nora Alexander, begin the piece with a mad dance to classic bass beats, showcasing their stunning light up trainers, stopping only to listen to Ian. Represented by a glowing light bulb suspended from the ceiling, DJ Ian Taylor becomes an almost God-like figure, rhythmically pulsating with light as he speaks. His “followers” listen to his every word, as do the audience, captivated by this simple use of staging.

Following Ian’s stories, the three women take the audience on an oddly beautiful journey through the Manchester rave scene in the eyes of Ian. The best thing about this show is the way they make the audience feel involved, teaching us dance moves — specifically the hot potato and waterfall fingers —, giving us “drugs” (biscuits), hugging us, and just generally sharing the party with us.

However, there is a poignancy to the story as we begin to hear Ian cry, upset that the good times are over. Blaming Margaret Thatcher, we see video clips of her, merging with clips of workers and factories. In front of this, the three actresses continue their repetitive dance, over and over again, as the clips introduce Ronald Reagan before including images of Theresa May and Donald Trump, alluding to the idea that nothing changes politically.

All the while the women are dancing to the point of exhaustion, the audience have a genuine concern for them until they eventually collapse on the stage, physically unable to move.

The actresses have a beautiful dynamic, creating crazy, clownish characters, which an audience develops an amazing connection with. Their pure determination and energy are applaudable in themselves, without even commenting on the fantastic acting that is occurring. Cleverly choreographed, together they create a rapidly fluid piece, dragging the audience along with them.

In Bed with My Brother manage to fuse together dance with politics to create an immersive piece of theatre which highlights the lack of political change since its setting. At just 45 minutes long, this piece certainly leaves the audience begging for more.

Interview: Ian Hislop & Nick Newman

Written by Sophie Graci on . Posted in Theatre.

Sophie Graci (SG): First of all, how’s it going? How was the West End run [of The Wipers Times]?

Nick Newman (NN): It exceeded our expectations. You know, you put this stuff out there and hope that people share your view that this is an interesting story. This time last year we were in a tiny little theatre outside Newbury called The Watermill, and it sold out there. You think ‘oh wow, two hundred people coming to it, that’s amazing’ and then a year later we’ve just done a week in Richmond which had eight hundred seats and that was sold out. So it’s really delighted us.

Ian Hislop (IH): It just keeps going. We thought ‘we’ve done the West End’ and the producer said ‘No, no, we’re going back out on tour, we’re going to do the big theatres.’ So we’ve been down to Cardiff and there’s Manchester and Newcastle and then Glasgow later on, so it’s quite ambitious, but it’s been fantastic so far.

NN: Our initial concern, because we were [in] such a small theatre initially was how would the set even look in a big proscenium arch theatre? Luckily almost all proscenium arch theatres are the same dimensions so you just move the wings out a little bit and there you are. It’s a challenge for the actors. We’ve gone from theatres where it’s all up and down so you’re playing to the gods and we’re now at Northern Stage, which is in Newcastle, and it’s wide. It’s a good challenge; it’s interesting how it all works in different places.

SG: Why did you decide to adapt The Wipers Times for the stage? Has it brought something to it that it didn’t have on film?

NN: We’d actually started writing it as a play before we did it as a film. We had spent so long trying to convince TV companies that this was a story worth telling and getting nowhere, so we thought ‘let’s try it as a play!’ It’s quite a theatrical story: a lot of their jokes are about music hall and characters in music halls. We were about a third of the way through [writing it as a play] when out of the blue we got a call from BBC 2 saying ‘we’re interested in this.’ So we wrote a film, but we always felt it was unfinished business.

IH: So what you’re seeing now is the result of having done a thing on the telly. People write to you once it’s been on and they tell you ‘we’ve got this, we know this story, have you looked into this?’ which meant we could put all that in the stage version. We could up the number of musical items because you can weave it into the change of scene and it makes it richer. We had a female director who basically said, ‘too many boys in it – can we have some girls now?’

SG: (laughs) Lovely!

IH: So we did what we were told! Which helped hugely actually.

NN: It broadened out the story.

IH: We found out a lot about the temperance movement and about alcohol, which is a big theme of The Wipers Times: booze really running the war, people at home trying to stop it, and our lot not being very keen on that!

NN: All those elements came in after the film, which is great [because] it made it much richer. Particularly the use of more musical numbers, because we what we’ve done is taken snatches of verse that they wrote and set them to music. They’re about silly things, about [the] company commander losing all his hair or ‘they say that love makes the world go round, it was rum that made the world go round for me last night.’ They’re little snatches of verse, but it’s using more of their words which we’re very keen to do.

SG: It seems almost like the BBC was an initial try out, and now [the play] has come back to the stage where it was intended to be.

IH: Film is very cool essentially; you don’t get a lot back from it. With theatre it changes every night, it changes from town to town. It’s the pleasure of seeing it live, you can go and sit in the back and watch the effect of what you’ve written, and then the effect of something you’ve changed, or you’ve seen it on another night and thought ‘that doesn’t work’ and put something better in.

SG: Or an actor tries something out.

IH: Absolutely, and it works, and you think ‘great!’

NN: One of the things that we really liked in the film was the noise, and the explosions and we achieved that in the film by an app where [the director] could set off different levels of bombs around the actors just to surprise them. Putting that in the theatre is fantastic. Our sound chap, Steve Mayo, has devised this amazing soundscape, which puts you in the action. Your seat shakes when these bombs go off. It makes the whole thing much more immersive.

IH: Nearly all the action is in dugouts, in small, enclosed spaces, in trenches. This is sort of built for the theatre really; you don’t need sweeping panoramas because no one saw any of that! Our lot saw the parapet and just three feet in front of them and that was the war. I think that comes over from putting it in a theatrical context.

SG: How did you come across the story?

NN: Ian came across it. He was working on a documentary about something incredibly boring…

IH: Thank you, Nick!

NN: He came back and said ‘have you ever heard of this?’ He showed me a copy and neither of us had heard of it at all. If you find something nobody’s heard of or forgotten you feel a bit excited that you’re onto something.

IH: It’s such a brilliant story I couldn’t believe no one else knew it. It’s so unlikely: they go into the ruins looking for salvage, there’s a fully working printer. The sergeant in their troop used to work on Fleet Street. They were both engineers – they weren’t journalists, they hadn’t written before – and they thought, ‘oh we’ll set up a satirical trench paper.’ It’s quite a strange thing to decide to do, and they were brilliant at it. We didn’t think ‘oh this is quite quaint’ or ‘this is amusing old-fashioned humour.’ This is rude, modern – I feel, in tone – and funny. I mean really funny, not pretend.

SG: I like [the paper’s unofficial catchphrase] ‘are we being as offensive as we might be?’

NN: It’s brilliant, and the high command didn’t get it! Our chaps fell on that with glee.

IH: They repeated it endlessly. It became their running joke – ‘Are we being offensive enough?’ ‘I don’t know, we should be more offensive. Let’s be more offensive.’

SG: Why do you think satire in particular appeals to people in politically trying times?

IH: I think firstly it’s a release mechanism. It is a sort of great British tradition in that we do tend to say ‘well, one way of fighting this is to laugh at it’ and it has traditionally been for our democracy a very effective way of keeping people honest, by fear of ridicule.

NN: You’ve got in Jeeves and Wooster stories the fascist Roderick Spode: it’s not the black shirts, it’s the black shorts. Men walking around in black shorts are silly.

IH: It was incredibly effective. People were scared of [Oswald] Mosley and then Wodehouse creates a movement of grown men wandering around in black shorts. It is that thing of refusing to be scared and humour allows you to display that. I think what appeals about the satirical response to things is that it’s a robust response.

NN: The spirit is the same today: how do we respond to Trump? We try to make fun of him.

IH: He hates it. Half his tweets are comments on how unfunny Saturday Night Live is. They must be so thrilled.

NN: Last year we did a Private Eye cover before the election saying ‘Vote Trump’ and we had this great picture of Trump just pointing at his head looking completely bonkers and saying ‘it’s a no-brainer.’ Trump saw that and re-tweeted it and sa[id] ‘British media get behind me.’ It was so pleasing that he just didn’t get the joke.

IH: He didn’t have a clue. We couldn’t have written it, it was just so good, and that gives you small amounts of pleasure ’cause you think, ‘well, alright, that’s a response.’

NN: There’s an irony there as well as given about how much Trump goes on about fake news and here is a bit complete fake news that he hasn’t spotted!

SG: You guys have known each other for a very long time, how do you keep a working relationship fresh and keep things bouncing off each other?

NN: I buy Ian flowers and chocolates… show him how much I love him.

IH: That really is fake news! (laughs)

NN: The writing projects where we’ve got three months to write a script don’t happen very often, so when it does happen we’re very pleased to do it. We’ve got a film that we’ve got to write coming up and I think we’re both really looking forward to it because we know now where it’s going to go and we’re very behind it.

On a weekly basis, we have, say, three writing sessions together a fortnight for Private Eye. That’s always good fun, ‘cause they’re not very intense. We spend a few hours churning out ideas. One of the great things about having known each other for so long [is] there’s no embarrassment or awkwardness if one or the other doesn’t think the idea’s working. You just say ‘I don’t think that works’ and we move on to the next one.

IH: Writing with someone is great in terms of not only sort of bouncing stuff off [each other] but also being able to edit very quickly by saying ‘That’s not very funny Nick.’

NN: We’re sort of editing each other all the time. I think makes it a slightly quicker process. You sort of feel if both of us like it now we think it’s probably ok and then if somebody else doesn’t like it they’re idiots obviously. (laughs)

IH: You’re not defending your patch as it were. If there are two of you you’ve gone into it and you’ve compromised and agreed already. I think that is very helpful.

NN: Writing’s bloody hard anyway, but because I draw cartoons thinking of a complete sort of little scenario, the punch line is what it’s all about. Whereas when you’re writing a script there are so many avenues you can go down, and that’s where it’s so it’s just great collaborating with somebody.

IH: Also because Nick’s a cartoonist he’s got a very strong idea of what it looks like, and I’m much more wordy. It means Nick can say ‘that’s very elegant and very well phrased, but quite dull,’ and that helps a lot.

SG: Do you have any advice for student writers, cartoonists, and satirists?

NN: Do it, really! That’s the only thing you can do is do something and send it off and get rejected. Don’t be hurt by the rejection because the best cartoonists in the world probably get a one in ten hit rate.

IH: On the journalistic front, I would really recommend the postgrad courses. They are fantastic for making contacts, and they’re very good on placements. Apart from that, just send stuff in. All editors pretend they’re not desperate, but they are!

NN: There’s a very classic Private Eye cartoon, which was attributed to Peter Cook, which is of somebody saying ‘I’m writing a book’ and the other person saying ‘Neither am I’ and that is the truth about most people who say they’re writers.

IH: If you actually do it, there’s no substitute!

The Wipers Times plays at The Opera House from October 31st-November 4th. Tickets can be purchased from here.

Live: The ‘Honey G’ Show

Written by Elizabeth Gibson on . Posted in Music.

Manchester Academy 3

The 10th of October 2017

Before attending Honey G’s first ever headline show, I was curious about the demographic it would attract. During her time on X Factor, many of her fans were children who enjoyed her larger-than-life persona and knack for making rap classics lighter and sillier.

However, Honey has often declared herself to be a true urban artist more interested in creating straight rap than crossover material. I was therefore intrigued as to how she would balance humour for the kids’ entertainment and serious stuff for her own musical fulfilment.

The crowd turned out to be pretty diverse, with a range of ages and, yes, lots of families. We were kept waiting for Honey to arrive due to lengthy technical issues — forgivable, what with this being her first gig, but frustrating nonetheless. At last, the familiar figure bobbed onto the stage in her shiny tracksuit and shades, and plunged into “The Honey G Show”.

The hit did a good job of setting the night’s tone: energetic, rather odd, but undeniably enjoyable. The balance of fun songs and edgier ones felt about right, though there were a few moments that had parents gasping — one sudden vulgar line made even me choke on my drink. Still, fine-tuning her tone is something Honey has time to work on.

As the show progressed it became clear that the technical hitches were going nowhere. We frequently had to wait for backing tracks to kick in, or Honey would demand that a song is started fresh. She also dashed offstage twice for costume changes, progressing from a gold tracksuit to a blue tracksuit to a silver tracksuit. While this was a novelty, it might have been one better left for a future show, considering tonight’s had already suffered such disruption.

Fortunately, Honey G can work a crowd. She had the kids hollering along to her call-and-response, and was able to improvise without hesitation when things didn’t go to plan technically. She has a rare charisma and warmth. The image pushed by many X Factor viewers of some naïve fool with delusions of grandeur has been swiftly erased from my mind and, I imagine, many others’.

Whether or not her character is real, Anna Gilford is clearly a very smart lady who knows exactly what she is doing, and this gig showed she has an audience for it. I’m very curious to see what she will do next.

7/10

“Mixed heritage is a great asset” – Mabel at Neighbourhood Festival: Interview

Written by Jack Greeney on . Posted in Music.

I clambered aboard a tour bus in early October to meet rising R&B star Mabel McVey before her show at Manchester’s Neighbourhood Festival. The singer is set to perform at Gorilla this evening, a date which comes right in the middle of a headline tour.

“It’s a different vibe right now,” she says of the festival, “there’s a really good energy, a cool lineup”. Whilst she’s here she’s making time to go see her friend Zak Abel perform, as well as Dan Caplin. It’s her first ever show in Manchester, somewhere she says she’s “really excited to be performing”.

Mabel, still very young, is racking up the play counts online: her biggest hit, ‘Finders Keepers’, an ephemeral, intensely catchy single about no-strings sex, is currently ranking 12 million plays on Spotify, and counting.

How much attention does she give to that kind of thing? “It’s motivating: it’s a good feeling, good feedback”, she says. But it’s clear too that they’re not everything, not overly useful. She’s keen to avoid complacency. “At the same time, it’s not good to just sit back and watch play counts, is it”.

So what of live performance? Mabel is an artist who has gradually grown into the performance side of things: it’s gone from her most nervous aspect of being a singer to her favourite, her most confident. She’s looking to continue that in good stride later today, at the intimate venue under the Manchester railway tracks.

So far on her tour, she’s been to Birmingham, London and Bristol — “all really fun” —, and she’s set to set to get through Paris and London again by the end of the next week. This all feels like it’s building up to the hotly anticipated release of her mixtape, Ivy to Roses, due to be released the week after. She’s clearly excited for that — and why shouldn’t she be? It’s an exciting time.

Another thing that fills her with enthusiasm is an album that’s in the works and out next year. She’s been back and forward between London and L.A. to produce it, whilst keeping herself in an “always-writing mentality”.

This is a person for whom moving around has been a constant theme throughout life, having grown up variously between Malaga, Stockholm, and London. I ask her what advantages this unique aspect about her has on her music. “Where you are is always great influence”, she says. “Mixed heritage is a great asset”.

Her one-place-then-the-next upbringing is not the only point of her childhood often brought up under interview. Mabel is also the daughter of a singer-songwriter, Neneh Cherry, and a record producer, Cameron McVey.

I ask her if a family well-esteemed in the music industry helped or hindered her in her own career: “both”, she definitively states. Obviously, music was always going to be apart of her life growing up. Her parents continued on and had her playing the piano from age 5. “Work and family are kept very separate,” she says of home, “but it’s good to have support from people who’ve been there”.

When she was younger, Mabel ran a Swedish style blog: after I mention this we talk about the importance of image. To Mabel, visuals are important — she’s “super visual” — but at the same time they’re just “another piece to the puzzle” that makes up the whole package.

Fashion is another form of expression to her: but not the most crucial aspect when it comes to music. What is, however, is storytelling. It’s definitely the strong point of her music: evocative lyrics that tie together to form a strong narrative.

That’s what she’s aiming for with her singles, her mixtapes, and her album. But it’s also what she’s here to do at the festival later this evening. For Mabel, storytelling is an essential part of music.

Mabel strikes as a figure whose rising ascendancy and status in the music industry is only set to continue in that same direction. In equal measure, this album in the works will be a hotly anticipated one if the singles, mixtapes and live performances continue on in the same pathway she looks to have forged for herself.