In 2022, Ukraine won the Eurovision Song Contest in a landslide victory. Traditionally, the winner hosts the following year but due to the significant security issues posed by the ongoing war with Russia, Ukraine was unable to host. As the 2022 runners-up, the United Kingdom stepped in to assist with hosting Continue Reading
TV
Put your platform shoes away and get up from the stage: The Eurovision Song Contest wraps up for another year “united by music”
(courtesy Eurovision.tv / Corinne Cumming / EBU) What another amazing year of musical togetherness! With the Eurovision Song Contest have run its unifying course for another year, and Sweden having been crowned the winner with Loreen becoming the first woman with her atmospheric song “Tattoo” to win the contest in Continue Reading
“It’s time Empire had a reckoning.” Foundation debuts epic season 2 trailer
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTBased on the award-winning sci-fi novels by Isaac Asimov, Foundation chronicles a band of exiles on their monumental journey to save humanity and rebuild civilization amid the fall of the Galactic Empire. The premise of the stories is that, in the waning days of a future Galactic Empire, the Continue Reading
Eurovision 2023: why the stage itself is the silent star of the contest (curated article)
(The stage of the 67th annual Eurovision Song Contest at the M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool. Adam Vaughan/EPA Images) This week, Liverpool stages one of the world’s largest live televised events, the Eurovision Song Contest. I grew up watching it as an annual family get-together. Now, as a lecturer in Continue Reading
How to win Eurovision: the secret code of the contest’s winning lyrics (curated article)
(The Eurovision Song Contest stage. Review News/Shutterstock) The Eurovision Song Contest is one of the few remaining examples of event TV – and UK audiences lap it up. With 8.9 million viewers in 2022, Britain formed the largest audience of all Eurovision markets. And this time around, there’s even a Continue Reading
Rift made good or is it? Platonic explores the hilarious landscape of a renewed, all-consuming friendship (trailer and poster)
(courtesy IMP Awards) SNAPSHOTPlatonic follows a platonic pair of former best friends approaching midlife (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) who reconnect after a long rift. The duo’s friendship becomes all consuming—and destabilizes their lives in a hilarious way. Platonic is a series created by writer / filmmaker Nicholas Stoller (aka Continue Reading
#Eurovision cultural festival 2023: British sitcom Extraordinary
When it comes to people getting superpowers, we are habitually used to two key constants: Looks like, rather happily it should be added, that no one sent the memo to Extraordinary, which explores a world in which superpowers have magically been dispensed to everyone and they are so much a Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2023: Week 7 – The Big 6 – France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ukraine and United Kingdom (Grand final)
What is the Eurovision Song Contest?Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open to Continue Reading
Sitcom round-up 3: Schmigadoon! S2 (E1-5) and The Big Door Prize (S1, E5-7)
Schmigadoon! (S2, E1-4) After the frothy small town warmth and romance, with some ne’er-do-well plotting in there too of course, of season one of Schmigadoon! (a delightful send-up of the musical film Brigadoon, the fondly-realised homage to musicals return with a second season that takes a decidedly darker turn. Now Continue Reading
Shoot for the moon: Thoughts on Hello Tomorrow!
People, by and large, are not great fans of reality. Oh, we’re stuck right in the middle of it, like a ’50s movie serial character stuck in quicksand at a cliffhanger moment, but we don’t much like it; while we watch epic love and thrilling action and huge twists and Continue Reading