Illustrations by Grace McKenna The Cemetery was situated at the bottom of a pillar of rock at the edge of the woods, past the long grass, past the ticks, and past the rabbits in their cages in the lane.  The Bees were abundant in the spring, and by the age of ten, I had been stung three times– once on the chin, once on the thigh and once on the grass whilst playing barefoot. My sister remained untouched. She liked to consider herself in alliance with the Bees– her, a small th

Illustrations by Grace McKenna In an increasingly digital world, reading a physical book is becoming somewhat old-fashioned. Kindles and other portable digital reading tools offer the ability to carry hundreds of books around without your tote bag straps snapping – a desirable prospect for avid readers like me who find themselves devouring multiple books a week. With the click of a button, you can have a new book at your fingertips – no waiting for a delivery or travelling to

Edinburgh University Footlights, Talk It Out Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Last Friday (March 20th 2026) I exploited my privileges as a reviewer for this publication to take my friend to a much needed therapy session - a self-help group gathering at Pleasance Theatre. While this might not sound like a traditional ‘girls night out’ activity, The Edinburgh University Footlights’ newest production   made therapy seem like an outrageously good time. In addition to mental health, Talk It Out

Edinburgh University Theatre Company, The Importance of Being Earnest Rating: ★ ★ ★.5 After encountering Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest  one is met with the realisation that more cannot be asked from a comedy: it has pace, it has drama, it has eccentric characters engaging in clever wordplay, it has twists and turns that satisfyingly culminate in a truly absurd conclusion. Yet with so much comedic brilliance embedded into the text, Wilde’s play is incredibly de

Illustrations by Grace McKenna We’ve all heard the “it’s a trend” trope well when it's applied to “blue-haired liberals” and Instagram “social justice warriors”. But what of the new conservative youngsters emerging out of society’s fringe and into the mainstream of social media?  The news tells us that a rising share of the youth vote is trending towards conservative candidates , such as Donald Trump in the U.S. and Pierre Poilievre in Canada. A recent Gallup poll  reveals th

Illustrations by Grace McKenna What on earth has happened to theatre etiquette? I have come away from almost every single theatre show I have been to in the past few years with a funny, shocking, or downright incredulous story regarding my fellow theatregoers’ behaviour. During a performance of Cabaret, I witnessed two men over-enthusiastically singing along, only to be violently thumped by an enraged old woman and her handbag. While watching The Hunger Games: On Stage, a lou

Bradley Stevens, @brad4eusa There is something very bewitching in the way Brad slickly glides over buttons and dials and thingamajigs in the FreshAir Radio studio during his usual Friday slot. He is certainly in his element: a natural speaker with an infectious energy and uncanny musical knowledge that invites listeners and guests to lean in, begging for more. I think some people might be shocked to learn this charisma is being channelled into politics, not social media influ

Illustrations by Grace McKenna Every adaptation set in the past inevitably reignites the same question: how accurate should it be? With Emerald Fennell’s new take on Wuthering Heights , anticipation quickly gave way to scrutiny. Costumes, characterisation, tone, and thematic framing were placed under a historical microscope. Yet audiences continue to embrace the glossy, deliberately anachronistic world of Bridgerton  without demanding documentary fidelity to the Regency era.

Illustrations by Grace McKenna Writing a literature and theatre column, it was inevitable that I would eventually write an article where these worlds collided. In fact, it’s almost impossible to discuss one without discussing the other. Literature and theatre have been interacting and inspiring each other for hundreds of years, exchanging stories, characters, and motifs. Their entanglement stretches all the way back to the 16 th  century, with perhaps the most famous playwrig

EUTC, The Seagull Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★.5 In the knowledge that this production of The Seagull  has nabbed the title for highest grossing Bedlam play of the season, it’s fair to say that expectations going into this were high; and that they did not disappoint. It is no small endeavour to take on a Chekhov play. The first of his four major plays, The Seagull  is ambitious in theme; set within rural Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, a sprawl of interconnecting characters d

Charli XCX, Wuthering Heights (Spotify) Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ Fact: I love Wuthering Heights .  I first read this classic when I was sixteen, as part of my beloved A Level English Literature. Then as now, I have been fascinated by the psyche of its elusive creator, Emily Brontë. How did a woman who died at thirty, for all we know so sheltered, so tragic, write so cannily of human evil? While her sexual ignorance is made obvious by the inexplicable appearance of babies in the novel,

EUSC, Romeo and Juliet Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ Putting on a play as iconic as Romeo and Juliet is no mean feat, and I entered Pleasance Theatre wondering how Salvador Kent – directing his debut Shakespeare play – and assistant director Florrie Prichard Jones would handle the four-hundred year-old material. Fortunately, the EUSC’s production was bold and blood-soaked, showcasing imagination while remaining (mostly) reverent towards the text.   Strong actors made up a complimentary cas

Why we don’t talk about, or can’t even remember the pandemic. Illustrations by Grace McKenna Six years on, it's hard to imagine that not so long ago everyday life looked vastly different for every single person you know. No matter where you lived in the world, if you were alive during the pandemic, the chances are that you have at least one memory of it.  Maybe something you dip into anecdotally if ever someone brings up the notion of being ‘bored’, on ‘house arrest’, or watc

Illustrations by Grace McKenna After a nineteen hour odyssey across the entirety of Europe and half of Asia, Kyrgyzstan appropriately greeted me with a plate of meat jelly. Said carnivorous concoction unassumingly supported me as a platter of organised cold stability, an antidote to my burning embarrassment upon having woken up my host mother, father and sister at 4am on a Sunday. My timely arrival was accompanied by the cacophonous circus of three suitcases, each demanding t

Edinburgh University Footlights, Kiss Me, Kate Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★.5 On Thursday night, we were treated to ‘another op’nin’ of another show’ of the Edinburgh University Footlights’ production of Kiss Me, Kate at Church Hill Theatre, and what a show it was! Cole Porter’s 1948 musical based on The Taming of the Shrew  was brought alive by an incredibly talented cast, band and crew, with almost too many standout moments to name. Every aspect of the production delivered, and director

Illustrations by Grace McKenna Artists are probably the luckiest people to exist. They usually have some sort of talent that was just bestowed upon them at birth, and from there on out they found their niche and stuck with it. Musicians, writers, actors, painters, poets - they are the privileged, but also the damaged.  When thinking about the most significant pieces of art ever created, I can almost guarantee that the artists behind them are not always morally sound. Of cours

Illustrations by Grace McKenna Immigrant populations and transgender people have always been a target of societal mistreatment. Today, though, they face a new wave of political villainization so overt that it has caused even the staunchest of conservatives to waver  in their support for their parties’ agendas. Much of the world is watching in horror as the Trump Administration carries out the “largest deportation operation in history” . Even the ostensibly more progressive La

EUSC, Romeo and Juliet In anticipation of the Edinburgh University Shakespeare Company's upcoming production of Romeo and Juliet , our Creative Editor Daniel sat down with the Director (Salvador Kent), Producer (Kai Smolin), and Juliet (Anya McChristie) to talk in depth about the creative process behind their production and the timelessness of its themes and messages. Daniel: So the first question I had was, with a play like Romeo and Juliet, that is so famous and iconic...

Illustrations by Grace McKenna Since last May, I’ve started keeping a reading journal. I’ve always been a keen user of book tracking apps (StoryGraph over Goodreads any day, by the way), but I didn’t use these to write reviews, rather just to track what I had read. Starting my reading journal, I vowed to write a review for every book I read from then on, and I’m pleased to report that I’ve stuck to that promise. This process has changed the way I engage with many books; it ha

Illustrations by Grace McKenna Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist who was imprisoned in 1926 for his critique of fascism and remained behind bars until just before he died in 1937. His prison notebooks, which defined the importance of cultural hegemony, are still widely referenced in politics today. When I studied Gramsci in one of my courses, my professor joked that it was ironic how many works of legitimate, published literature from the 30s have been deemed outdated an