Posts Tagged Netflix

Culture Vulture: 4–10 July 2026

July 3, 2026 at 5:23 pm · Filed under Culture Vulture, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , , , , ,

The Fourth of July casts a long, confident shadow across this week’s viewing, and broadcasters have embraced the 250th anniversary of America’s Declaration of Independence with gusto. History, music, politics, travel, and a run of films that remind you just how deeply American storytelling has seeped into the cultural bloodstream. It’s a week where Neil Armstrong rubs shoulders with Ravi Shankar, where The Specials share the stage with Blondie, and where Ridley Scott’s neon‑soaked Los Angeles still feels like the future.

There’s celebration, certainly, but also reflection. The concluding chapter of The American Revolution lands with real weight, while Armstrong offers a quieter portrait of a man who changed the world simply by stepping onto another. And if you’d rather mark the week with music, Sky Arts and the BBC have you covered with 2 Tone, Blondie, and a generous helping of American icons.

Film lovers are spoiled: Blade Runner, The Lady Eve, Leave Her to Heaven, Atonement, BlackBerry, Official Secrets, Red Rooms — a line‑up that swings from Technicolor noir to modern paranoia without missing a beat. It’s a rich, varied week, and one that rewards dipping in and out rather than trying to consume everything at once.

Saturday 4 July

8.00pm – Alexander Armstrong Across America (Channel 5)

Armstrong’s cross‑country wander continues, this time through West Virginia. He’s a genial guide — curious without being intrusive, amused without being arch — and the series has settled into a relaxed, intelligent rhythm. Ideal early‑evening viewing.

9.00pm – 50 American Music Icons at the BBC (BBC Two)

A generous sweep through the artists who shaped modern music. Expect the usual BBC archive magic: grainy footage, unexpected pairings, and performances that still crackle decades later.

9.00pm – Starter for 10 (BBC Four, 2006)

Starter for 10 begins as a gentle comedy about a working‑class lad arriving at Bristol University in the mid‑1980s, but quickly becomes something more textured: a story about belonging, aspiration, and the awkwardness of trying to reinvent yourself. James McAvoy plays Brian with a mix of earnestness and self‑inflicted calamity, the kind of young man who wants desperately to be clever but hasn’t yet learned how to be comfortable.

The University Challenge sequences are great fun — brisk, competitive, and full of the kind of trivia that once felt like the height of sophistication. But the film’s real strength lies in its emotional honesty. Brian’s romantic missteps, his friendships, and his attempts to reconcile his new life with the one he left behind are handled with a light touch that never slips into sentimentality.

The supporting cast is uniformly excellent, especially Rebecca Hall and Dominic Cooper, who bring nuance to roles that could easily have been caricatures. And the soundtrack — all jangly guitars and wistful nostalgia — gives the film a warm, lived‑in feel. A small story told with generosity.

9.00pm – The Specials Live from Coventry Cathedral (Sky Arts)

This 2019 concert captures The Specials at a moment when their music felt newly urgent. Performing inside Coventry Cathedral — a space steeped in history and resilience — the band channels decades of political frustration into something electrifying. There’s no sense of nostalgia or polite revivalism; the performance is sharp, committed, and defiantly present.

Tracks like “Ghost Town” and “A Message to You, Rudy” land with renewed force, their themes of inequality and social tension sounding depressingly familiar in 2026. It’s a reminder that 2 Tone wasn’t just a musical movement; it was a cultural reckoning.

10.15pm – The Creator (Channel 4, 2023)

The Creator wears its ambition openly. Gareth Edwards builds a future where artificial intelligence has evolved into something indistinguishable from humanity, and the film explores the uneasy boundary between creation and control. John David Washington anchors the story with a performance full of conflicted empathy, and the relationship between his character and the AI child gives the film its emotional spine.

Visually stunning, thematically bold, occasionally uneven — but always sincere.

10.20pm – Anyone But You (BBC One, 2023)

A sun‑drenched rom‑com that leans unapologetically into screwball tradition. Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell spark off each other with the kind of chemistry that can’t be faked, turning bickering into foreplay and mishaps into momentum. Breezy, confident, and exactly what it sets out to be.

10.35pm – Record On: The Specials – A Message to You (Sky Arts)

A compact, lively documentary exploring one of the defining tracks of the 2 Tone era. It’s a reminder that some songs become landmarks not because they’re catchy, but because they capture a moment with uncanny precision.

12.10am – White Riot (Sky Arts)

White Riot remains one of the most vital music‑politics documentaries of recent years — urgent, angry, and absolutely crackling with purpose. It charts the rise of Rock Against Racism, that scrappy, DIY coalition of musicians, activists and ordinary kids who refused to let the far right colonise Britain’s youth culture in the 1970s. What makes the film sing is its blend of raw archival footage and present‑day testimony: it feels historical and contemporary at the same time, a reminder that the battles fought then still echo now.

The documentary captures the electricity of those early RAR gigs — the sense of possibility, the belief that culture could be a weapon rather than a mirror. Punk, reggae, ska: all thrown together in a glorious, defiant mess that said more about Britain than any politician ever could. It’s a portrait of people who didn’t wait for permission to resist; they just built a movement out of flyers, fanzines, borrowed amps and sheer bloody-minded conviction.

And of course, the far right noticed. The National Front, rattled by RAR’s momentum and terrified of losing cultural ground, responded by creating Rock Against Communism — a clumsy attempt at a counter‑movement that eventually morphed into White Noise, a more organised and effective effort to push racist music into youth subcultures. It was the mirror image of RAR: where one side preached solidarity, the other peddled division; where one fused genres, the other narrowed them into a clenched fist. The fact that White Noise gained traction is a reminder that culture wars aren’t new — and they’re never fought on just one front.

White Riot doesn’t shy away from any of this. It’s a call to remember that culture can be a force for change, but also that it’s always contested. RAR won hearts, minds and dancefloors — but the NF kept trying to exert influence. The film ends with a sense of unfinished business, and rightly so. We’re still waiting on the documentary that tackles Rock Against Communism and White Noise head‑on, tracing how the far right tried to reshape youth culture in the opposite direction. It’s a story that deserves the same forensic, fiery treatment.

Until then, White Riot stands as a testament to what happens when ordinary people decide they’ve had enough — and pick up guitars instead of giving up.

1.30am – Godland (BBC Two, 2022)

A stark Icelandic drama of faith, colonialism and endurance. Slow, severe and visually extraordinary — a film that demands patience and rewards it with depth.

1.55am – Ian Dury and the Blockheads: Hold On to Your Structure (Sky Arts)

A late‑night jolt of energy, attitude and sheer artistic stubbornness. This documentary doesn’t just sketch Ian Dury; it inhabits him — the charisma, the bite, the wit, the refusal to be anything other than gloriously, awkwardly himself. Dury wasn’t built for tidy narratives or polite applause, and the programme wisely leans into that. It shows a performer who treated the stage like a battleground and a playground at the same time, swaggering through songs that sounded like they’d been chiselled out of everyday life and then electrified.

What emerges is a portrait of a man who understood rhythm as instinct, language as weaponry, and performance as a kind of joyful confrontation. The Blockheads, tight as a drumskin and twice as sharp, weren’t just a backing band — they were co‑conspirators. You see how their precision allowed Dury’s lyrical mischief to land with maximum impact. The documentary captures that chemistry beautifully: the way a sly grin from Dury could send the whole ensemble pivoting into something loose, funky and unmistakably theirs.

There’s also a strong sense of context — Britain in the late 70s, restless, loud, and culturally up for grabs. Dury wasn’t punk, but he wasn’t not punk either. He occupied that strange, thrilling space where pub rock, art‑school eccentricity and working‑class grit collided. The film shows how he channelled all of it: disability, class, frustration, humour, defiance. He turned the messiness of life into songs that felt like they were speaking directly to you, even when they were taking the mick.

What the programme gets right is the emotional truth beneath the bravado. Dury’s uncompromising nature wasn’t just attitude — it was survival. He built a structure for himself out of words, rhythm and sheer bloody-mindedness, and then held onto it with both hands. The documentary honours that without smoothing the edges or romanticising the chaos.

It’s a lively, affectionate, slightly rowdy tribute to a performer who never fitted neatly into any category and never wanted to. Charismatic, uncompromising, utterly original — the film reminds you that Ian Dury didn’t just make music. He made a world, and invited you in if you were brave enough to keep up.

Sunday 5 July

9.25am – Jane Eyre (BBC Two, 1943)

What makes this version endure isn’t just its fidelity to Charlotte Brontë’s story, but the way it captures the novel’s emotional weather. There’s a dampness to the air, a sense of wind pressing against old stone, that gives the whole film a haunted, half‑lit quality. Joan Fontaine plays Jane with that soft‑spoken resolve she was so good at: a woman who has learned to survive by shrinking herself, yet whose inner life is fierce, alert, and quietly defiant. You see it in the way she holds her posture, in the small hesitations before she speaks, as though weighing the cost of honesty.

Orson Welles, meanwhile, storms through Thornfield like a man wrestling with his own legend. His Rochester is theatrical, yes, but that’s part of the pleasure — he brings a bruised grandeur to the role, a sense of someone who has lived too intensely and now hides in the shadows of his own house. When he and Fontaine share the frame, the contrast is electric: her stillness against his volatility, her moral clarity against his romantic turbulence.

The Gothic atmosphere isn’t decoration; it’s the film’s emotional architecture. The fog, the candlelit corridors, the sudden bursts of sound — all of it mirrors Jane’s journey from repression to self‑possession. Even after eighty years, the film feels startlingly alive, a reminder of how potent Brontë’s story becomes when treated not as a costume drama but as a tale of yearning, loneliness, and the stubborn hope of finding a place where one’s heart is finally recognised.

8.00pm – Inside Classical: The Rite of Spring (BBC Four)

A clear, engaging introduction to Stravinsky’s revolutionary masterpiece. Accessible without oversimplifying — ideal for curious newcomers.

8.45pm – BBC Proms 2017: Passages (BBC Four)

Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass’s collaboration is performed in full. Hypnotic, intricate, and quietly transcendent.

9.15pm – Armstrong (PBS America)

A thoughtful portrait of Neil Armstrong that avoids hero worship. Disciplined, private, and quietly determined — a man defined not by fame but by precision.

10.00pm – Ravi Shankar in Concert (BBC Four)

Watching Shankar perform is witnessing music as conversation. Fluid, expressive, and masterful.

10.00pm – Blade Runner (BBC Two, 1982)

There are films that age, films that date, and films that simply continue — Blade Runner belongs to the last category. Every return to Ridley Scott’s neon‑drenched Los Angeles feels like stepping back into a dream you half‑remember. The city is vast, exhausted, and strangely beautiful, as if decay itself has become a kind of art form.

What keeps the film alive isn’t just the production design; it’s the moral unease that runs through every frame. Rutger Hauer’s Roy Batty remains one of cinema’s great tragic figures — a creature fighting for dignity in a world that denies him even the right to exist.

Vangelis’s score wraps the film in drifting melancholy. Blade Runner hasn’t been overtaken by the future because it already occupies it.

1.20am – Glory (Channel 4, 1989)

What strikes you, watching Glory again, is how completely it refuses to soften the brutality of the American Civil War. Edward Zwick frames the story of the 54th Massachusetts — the first all‑Black regiment in the Union Army — with a kind of sombre grandeur, letting the mud, smoke and chaos speak for themselves. It’s a film about courage, yes, but also about the grinding cost of being asked to prove your worth in a world determined to doubt it.

Denzel Washington’s performance remains the film’s emotional centre of gravity. He plays Private Trip with a rawness that never tips into sentimentality: a man hardened by injustice, suspicious of authority, and yet capable of moments of piercing vulnerability. The famous flogging scene still lands like a punch — Washington’s silent tears aren’t a plea for sympathy but a statement of defiance, a refusal to be broken again. It’s one of those rare moments in cinema where an actor seems to compress an entire history into a single expression.

Around him, Morgan Freeman brings quiet moral authority, and Matthew Broderick — often underestimated — gives Colonel Shaw a thoughtful, conflicted presence, a young officer learning the difference between command and leadership. The film’s final act, the assault on Fort Wagner, is staged with operatic intensity: not triumphant, but tragic, a recognition that heroism often comes without reward.

Glory endures because it treats its subject with seriousness and respect. It’s earnest, moving, and essential — a reminder of the sacrifices made by men who fought not just for a country, but for the right to be seen as part of it.

Monday 6 July

2.45pm – The Lady Eve (Film4, 1941)

Preston Sturges’ sparkling comedy remains a masterclass in elegance and timing. Barbara Stanwyck is sensational — sly, seductive and effortlessly in control — while Henry Fonda’s earnest innocence gives the film its comic heartbeat.

Sturges’ dialogue still crackles, full of sly jokes and perfectly timed reversals. Romance, deception and champagne-light wit combine into something timeless.

10.40pm – I Am Legend (BBC One, 2007)

Will Smith carries this post‑apocalyptic thriller with surprising emotional heft. Atmospheric and quietly affecting.

11.40pm – BlackBerry (Film4, 2023)

A whip‑smart, chaotic and irresistibly entertaining dive into the rise and implosion of the world’s first smartphone obsession. BlackBerry plays like a tech thriller filtered through a punk fanzine — scrappy, fast, and vibrating with the energy of people who have no idea they’re about to change the world, then absolutely no idea how to hold onto it.

Jay Baruchel is superb as Mike Lazaridis, all nervous brilliance and apologetic genius, a man who can build the future but can’t quite look anyone in the eye while doing it. His twitchy, soft‑spoken intensity gives the film its emotional core: the engineer who wants to make something elegant, functional, beautiful, and keeps watching it get swallowed by forces louder and more ruthless than he is.

Enter Glenn Howerton as Jim Balsillie — a volcanic, vein‑popping storm of ambition who seems to operate at a frequency only dogs can hear. It’s one of the great recent performances in a business drama: terrifying, hilarious, and weirdly compelling. He doesn’t just chew the scenery; he detonates it. The film’s best scenes come from the collision between Baruchel’s fragile idealism and Howerton’s corporate berserker energy, a partnership that feels both inevitable and doomed from the moment they shake hands.

Director Matt Johnson keeps the pace frantic and the tone razor‑sharp, capturing the absurdity of tech culture before tech culture learned to hide its absurdity behind glossy keynotes and minimalist branding. There’s a real pleasure in watching the early days of innovation rendered as something messy, human and slightly ridiculous — a reminder that the devices we now treat as extensions of ourselves were born out of chaos, ego and sheer improvisation.

What makes BlackBerry stand out is its refusal to mythologise. It’s funny, biting and occasionally bleak, but never reverent. It understands that the story of the smartphone pioneer isn’t a tale of heroes and villains — it’s a story of people who flew too close to the sun while arguing about data compression and supply chains.

One of the most entertaining business dramas in years, and one that knows exactly how to balance satire with sincerity. It’s frantic, funny and sharply observed — a rise‑and‑fall story that never stops moving, because neither did the people who built the thing in the first place.

12.05am – Official Secrets (BBC Two, 2019)

Katharine Gun’s whistleblowing story becomes a quietly gripping drama about conscience and consequence. Keira Knightley is superb — restrained, determined, and deeply human.

12.05am – Secrets of the Celebrity Sex Tapes (Channel 4)

The series concludes with Kim Kardashian and the birth of scandal‑as‑currency in the digital age.

Tuesday 7 July

10.00pm – The American Revolution (BBC Four)

The final episode — The Most Sacred Thing — lands with real force. A clear, confident account of the ideals that shaped a nation and still echo today.

10.40pm – The Lady in the Van (BBC One, 2015)

Maggie Smith is magnificent in Alan Bennett’s bittersweet tale.

What Bennett understands — and what this film preserves so beautifully — is that eccentricity isn’t a quirk, it’s a form of armour. Maggie Smith’s Miss Shepherd arrives on screen like a small weather system: unpredictable, sharp, and entirely uninterested in being liked. Yet Smith plays her not as a caricature of British oddity but as a woman whose stubbornness has become a survival strategy. There’s a flinty dignity in the way she occupies Bennett’s driveway, as though claiming a tiny republic of her own.

Alex Jennings, doing a double-act as Bennett’s internal and external selves, gives the film its gentle hum of self-mockery. He captures that familiar Bennett blend of wry detachment and reluctant compassion — the writer who would prefer to observe life from a safe distance but keeps finding himself drawn into its mess. Their relationship becomes a kind of slow, awkward dance: two people circling each other, neither quite willing to admit they care.

What lifts the film is its refusal to sentimentalise the situation. The humour is dry, the melancholy unforced. You feel the weight of Miss Shepherd’s past pressing through the cracks, and the way Bennett’s quiet acts of kindness accumulate almost despite himself. By the time the film reaches its final, lightly magical flourish, it feels earned — a recognition that even the most unlikely connections can leave a lasting mark.

It’s gentle, humane and quietly transformative, a story about responsibility that sneaks up on you and becomes something tender.

2.20am – Ayena (Channel 4, 2022)

A thoughtful independent drama exploring identity and expectation with sensitivity and restraint.

Wednesday 8 July

9.00pm – How to Get Filthy Rich with Gary Stevenson (Channel 4)

Stevenson brings rare clarity to discussions of wealth and inequality. Provocative, evidence‑driven and bracing.

9.00pm – Katie Price: Nothing to Hide (Sky Documentaries)

An unexpectedly intimate portrait of a figure long defined by tabloid glare. Candid, empathetic and quietly revealing.

11.10pm – Red Rooms (Film4, 2023)

A chilling psychological thriller that burrows under the skin. Cold, clinical and unsettling — a study of obsession in the digital age.

11.45pm – David Brent: Life on the Road (BBC Three, 2016)

Ricky Gervais drags his most excruciating creation back into the spotlight, and the result is a mockumentary that leans hard into the painful humour that made The Office so indelible. Brent, still clinging to the tatters of his rock‑star delusion, bankrolls a doomed tour with a band who’d clearly rather be anywhere else. It’s a familiar cocktail of bravado, desperation and toe‑curling self‑promotion — the kind of comedy where you laugh, wince, and occasionally look away.

What gives the film its pulse is the way Gervais threads moments of genuine pathos through the cringe. Brent’s loneliness is never overstated, but it’s always there: in the forced banter, the awkward silences, the way he keeps performing even when no one’s watching. The jokes land because the sadness is real, and the sadness lands because the jokes are so sharply observed.

There’s also a sly commentary on ageing ambition — the man who can’t accept that the world has moved on, still chasing the dream he sketched out in a Slough office two decades earlier. The film doesn’t redeem Brent, but it does understand him. And in that understanding, it finds something oddly touching amid the chaos, the bad gigs, and the endless, exhausting need to be loved.

Thursday 9 July

9.00pm – Bletchley Park: Codebreaker’s Forgotten Genius (BBC Four)

A deserved tribute to Gordon Welchman, whose wartime innovations shaped Allied intelligence. Thoughtful and quietly moving.

9.00pm – The Road (Great! Action, 2009)

Cormac McCarthy’s bleak novel becomes an equally stark film. Viggo Mortensen gives a remarkable performance — gaunt, haunted, fiercely protective. A difficult, powerful meditation on love and survival.

10.40pm – Elvis (BBC One, 2022)

Baz Luhrmann’s maximalist whirlwind of a biopic — loud, glittering, and absolutely determined to sweep you off your feet. It’s cinema as spectacle, every frame straining with colour, movement and musical pulse. Yet beneath the rhinestones and riotous editing, the film keeps circling back to the emotional cost of myth‑making: the boy who became the brand, the man trapped inside the legend.

Austin Butler is magnetic throughout, not just mimicking Elvis’s swagger but finding the vulnerability underneath — the hesitations, the longing, the flashes of fear when the machinery around him grows too big to control. His performance gives the film its heartbeat, grounding Luhrmann’s operatic excess in something recognisably human.

And then there’s Tom Hanks’ Colonel Parker, a grotesque carnival barker of a presence, steering the story with a sinister grin. The dynamic between Butler’s raw sincerity and Hanks’ oily manipulation becomes the film’s engine, driving it through the highs, the heartbreak, and the inevitable crash.

It’s bold, messy, and often overwhelming — but that’s the point. Luhrmann isn’t trying to tell the story of Elvis so much as recreate the sensation of him: the dazzle, the noise, the impossible momentum of a life lived in the spotlight.

Friday 10 July

8.15pm – Women of World War II: More Untold Stories (PBS America)

Important, absorbing accounts of women whose wartime contributions deserve far wider recognition.

9.40pm – Blondie in Concert (BBC Four)

Asbury Park, New Jersey – September 29, 2018: Debbie Harry of Blondie performs on stage at the 2018 Sea Hear Now Music Festival.. Picture credit: Adam McCullough / Shutterstock.com

Captured in Glasgow in 1979, Blondie in Concert is a time capsule of a band at the height of its powers — tight, stylish, and effortlessly cool. Debbie Harry commands the stage with icy charisma, her voice cutting through the mix with precision and attitude. The performance brims with confidence: the band knows exactly what it’s doing and how good it sounds.

What’s striking, watching it now, is how modern it feels. The rhythms, the energy, the interplay between punk edge and pop sophistication — all of it still sounds fresh. Blondie were never just a band riding a trend; they were architects of a sound that bridged worlds, bringing New York grit into the mainstream without losing its bite.

Harry’s stage presence remains magnetic. She moves with the ease of someone who understands that cool isn’t about effort; it’s about control. The camera loves her, and she knows it, but there’s no vanity — just a performer completely in command of her craft.

The Glasgow crowd, caught between awe and exhilaration, adds its own electricity. You can feel the pulse of a moment when Blondie were redefining what pop could be: sharp, stylish, and utterly alive. It’s a concert that reminds you why they mattered — and why they still do.

10.00pm – 1977: When Virginia Wade Won Wimbledon (Channel 5)

A timely look back at Britain’s last women’s singles champion as Wimbledon reaches its climax.

11.00am – Leave Her to Heaven (Film4, 1945)

Gene Tierney’s performance remains one of cinema’s great femme fatale turns. A sumptuous Technicolor noir that hides darkness beneath its glossy surface.

12.05am – Atonement (BBC Two, 2007)

Romantic, devastating and beautifully made. Joe Wright’s adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel remains one of the finest British films of the century — a story about guilt, imagination and the long shadow of a single mistake.

Streaming

Saturday 4 July – Turn: Washington’s Spies (ITVX)

All four seasons drop at once. Jamie Bell anchors this smart, underrated drama about espionage during the American Revolution. Ideal for a long weekend binge.

Sunday 5 July – Sparks of Tomorrow (Netflix)

Weekly episodes. An imaginative anime set in an alternative twentieth century — visually striking and narratively ambitious.

Monday 6 July – Hamnet (Netflix)

Maggie O’Farrell’s novel becomes a sensitive, beautifully acted drama about grief, family and the shadows cast by genius.

Friday 10 July – Miguel Ángel Blanco: The 48 Hours That Changed Spain (Netflix)

A powerful documentary revisiting a moment that reshaped Spanish politics and united a nation.

Friday 10 July – Star City: Season Finale (Apple TV+)

The For All Mankind spin‑off reaches its Soviet‑side conclusion. Ambitious, thoughtful alternate‑history storytelling.

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One Piece Season 2: Themes of Dreams and Loyalty

March 31, 2026 at 3:04 pm · Filed under Netflix, What We've Been Watching ·Tagged , , , , ,

Logo of the anime One Piece featuring a skull with a straw hat and crossed bones, accompanied by stylized lettering.


Season 2 of One Piece arrives as a production that has grown into its own skin—bigger in scope, steadier in tone, and more emotionally articulate. As the Straw Hats enter the Grand Line, the series leans into sincerity, spectacle, and the unruly joy of a world that keeps widening.

The Season’s Arc

The new run adapts several major manga arcs—Loguetown, Reverse Mountain, Whisky Peak, Little Garden, and Drum Island—bringing giants, dinosaurs, bounty hunters, and the long‑awaited arrival of Tony Tony Chopper into the live‑action fold. The narrative follows the crew’s first steps into the Grand Line, where the seas are stranger, the politics sharper, and the enemies more organised. Baroque Works emerges as a shadowy antagonist, while Marine Captain Smoker becomes a persistent force on the crew’s heels.

Emotional and Thematic Texture

The season’s emotional register is widely described as more confident and more willing to trust its characters. That confidence shows in three interlocking themes:

  • The weight of dreams: Each Straw Hat confronts the tension between ambition and vulnerability, giving the season a grounded emotional spine.
  • Chosen family: The bonds between the crew feel lived‑in now, shaped by shared danger and mutual belief rather than simple camaraderie.
  • Loyalty under pressure: With Baroque Works manipulating events from the shadows, the crew’s trust in one another becomes a narrative engine rather than a decorative sentiment.

Luffy’s optimism remains the gravitational centre, but the show allows the quieter, more wounded parts of the ensemble to breathe.

Craft, World‑Building, and Visual Scale

Season 2 expands the world with a richer, more tactile aesthetic. Critics note the introduction of new islands, elaborate creature design, and a broader palette of environments—from the icy isolation of Drum Island to the prehistoric chaos of Little Garden. The action choreography is sharper, the humour more natural, and the pacing more assured. The show continues to blend cartoonish energy with grounded physicality, a balance that has become its signature.

Why the Season Lands

The adaptation succeeds because it respects Eiichiro Oda’s universe without being beholden to mimicry. It remixes certain beats to heighten emotional impact, foregrounds sincerity over cynicism, and trusts that the heart of One Piece lies not in spectacle alone but in the fragile courage of people who choose to believe in one another.

Available on Netflix.

By Chris Storton

Picture credit: By Netflix, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82474258

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Virgin River Season 7: Healing and Community in Focus

March 29, 2026 at 3:34 pm · Filed under Netflix, What We've Been Watching ·Tagged , ,

A scenic view of a river surrounded by mountains with the title 'VIRGIN RIVER' displayed prominently.

Virgin River’s seventh season extends the series’ long‑established commitment to quiet, character‑centred storytelling, deepening its focus on healing, community responsibility, and the emotional labour that underpins small‑town life. Rather than reinventing itself, the show refines its strengths: sincerity, steadiness, and the belief that ordinary lives are worthy of narrative attention.

The Season’s Narrative Shape

Season 7 continues to follow Mel Monroe and Jack Sheridan as they navigate the slow, often uneven process of rebuilding their lives after years of accumulated strain. Their relationship remains the emotional core of the series, but the season resists melodramatic shortcuts. Instead, it allows them to grow through small, believable adjustments—moments of vulnerability, miscommunication, and renewed trust. Mel’s ongoing search for purpose, particularly in the aftermath of personal loss, becomes a central thread. Her work in healthcare continues to anchor her, but the season gives space to her internal recalibration: what it means to care for others without erasing herself.

Jack’s arc remains grounded in the long shadow of trauma and the challenge of imagining a stable future. His efforts to balance emotional honesty with the pressures of running a business and supporting a partner give the season its most grounded moments. Around them, the ensemble cast continues to evolve. Virgin River’s residents face new beginnings, unexpected pregnancies, rekindled friendships, and the perennial tension between staying rooted and seeking reinvention. The town’s familiar rituals—its potlucks, its gossip networks, its instinctive neighbourliness—remain central, but the season acknowledges the frictions beneath the charm.

Themes and Social Undercurrents

🌿 Healing as a Slow Craft

The season treats recovery as a process rather than a revelation. Characters do not “move on” so much as learn to live alongside their histories. This approach gives the narrative emotional credibility: progress is measured in small gestures, not dramatic transformations.

🏡 Community as Comfort and Constraint

Virgin River’s small‑town intimacy remains a source of warmth, but the season also explores its pressures. In a place where everyone knows everyone’s business, belonging becomes both a privilege and a burden. The show touches on the social dynamics of rural life—how communities decide who is welcomed, who is scrutinised, and who is forgiven.

💔 Gendered Expectations and Emotional Labour

Mel’s storyline highlights the invisible labour expected of women in caregiving roles. Her attempts to balance compassion with boundaries form a subtle critique of how communities rely on women to absorb emotional turbulence. This theme resonates across several subplots, giving the season a quiet political edge.

🌲 The Limits of Reinvention

Many characters arrive in Virgin River seeking a fresh start, but the season insists that geography cannot erase grief, addiction, or regret. The town offers solace, not absolution. This refusal of easy redemption strengthens the show’s emotional realism.

🤝 Everyday Solidarity

The season’s warmth comes from its attention to small acts of care—neighbours showing up with food, friends offering quiet companionship, the community rallying around those who falter. These gestures form the moral backbone of the series, suggesting that collective care is built from ordinary acts rather than grand gestures.

Conclusion

Season 7 of Virgin River stands as a confident continuation of the show’s ethos: a belief in slow storytelling, emotional sincerity, and the dignity of everyday life. By allowing its characters to grow beyond archetype and by acknowledging the imperfections of its idyllic setting, the season offers a portrait of rural solidarity that feels both comforting and honest. It is a story about the work of staying—staying with grief, with love, with community—and the quiet courage that such staying requires. The result is a season that feels earned, grounded, and emotionally resonant, a steady flame in a landscape crowded with louder but less enduring stories.

Available on Netflix.

By Chris Storton

Picture credit: By Reel World Management – https://www.netflix.com/title/80240027, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62587798

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Age of Attraction: A bold take on modern connection

March 29, 2026 at 9:25 am · Filed under Netflix ·Tagged ,

Age of Attraction works best when treated not as a dating show but as a quiet inquiry into how people try—and often fail—to let themselves be known. The series enters a genre usually defined by spectacle, yet it moves with the patience of something more reflective, almost anthropological. Its premise is disarmingly simple: bring together a group of single adults and ask them to build connection without the usual shortcuts of physical chemistry, competitive framing, or performative charm. What emerges is a portrait of modern longing that feels both tender and unvarnished.

The experiment begins with conversation rather than appearance. Participants meet through guided dialogues, vulnerability exercises, and reflective tasks that ask them to articulate who they are when the armour comes off. This inversion of the usual order—emotional intimacy first, physical presence later—creates a kind of suspended space where people speak with a candour rarely seen on television. They talk about the relationships that shaped them, the wounds they carry, the patterns they’re trying to break. The show doesn’t rush these moments; it lets them breathe, allowing silence to do its own kind of narrative work.

As the season unfolds, the emotional groundwork is tested. When participants finally meet face‑to‑face, the question becomes whether the connection they’ve built can withstand the shock of embodiment. Some bonds deepen, others falter, and the resulting tension is not the explosive kind engineered for ratings but the quieter, more recognisable ache of mismatched expectations. The show’s power lies in its refusal to punish vulnerability; even when things unravel, the tone remains compassionate, as if the experiment itself is holding the participants with a kind of moral attentiveness.

What makes Age of Attraction worth watching is its insistence that intimacy is not a performance but a practice. It treats love as something that requires courage, self‑knowledge, and a willingness to sit with discomfort. In a landscape crowded with glossy dating formats, this series feels like a corrective—an attempt to show what connection looks like when people stop competing and start listening. It’s messy, yes, but the messiness is recognisably human, the kind that invites reflection rather than voyeurism.

The show stays with you because it asks a question that extends beyond its own format: what would our relationships look like if we led with honesty rather than impression?

By Chris Storton

Age of Attraction is available on Netflix. Image: Netflix, fair use.

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Mrs Playmen: A Drama of Power and Morality in 1970s Italy

November 16, 2025 at 3:51 pm · Filed under Netflix, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

FROM NOVEMBER 12 ONLY ON NETFLIX 

A sharp, grounded Netflix drama, Playmen follows editor Adelina Tattilo as she takes control of a scandal magazine and fights censors, creditors, and bad actors—keeping consent, context, and truth at the centre.

There’s a very specific charge running through Mrs Playmen: that feeling of being inside a newsroom where every headline, phone call, or envelope from the authorities might spell either triumph or disaster. Rather than giving us a single “hero” narrative, the series embraces the logic of the newsroom itself—collective, contested, and combustible. It’s an ensemble piece, and part of its sophistication lies in allowing each character to carry a different facet of Italy’s argument with itself during the 1970s. Moralists, libertines, Fascists, conservatives, feminists, cynics, workers, victims, and opportunists all occupy the same frame, each pulling the story’s moral centre of gravity in a different direction.

This breadth gives Mrs Playmen its richness. Far from being a linear rise-to-power drama, it shows how fragile progress is when surrounded by old systems determined to hold the line.

An ensemble cast shaped by conflict

Carolina Crescentini remains the anchor, playing Adelina Tattilo with that quietly decisive energy of someone who has had to learn her authority the hard way. But the show only works because she is surrounded by a full constellation of characters, each of whom personifies a pressure point of the time.

Francesco Colella’s Saro Balsamo—the husband who appoints her Editor in Chief and then abandons her to avoid legal consequences —represents the vanishing patriarch: all authority in the abstract, none in the moment of need. His storyline cuts straight into the hypocrisy of state “moral guardianship”: the same authorities who eagerly hunt for obscenity in magazines shrug at his domestic abuse. By including him, the show broadens its canvas from editorial battles to the broader culture of male impunity.

Filippo Nigro’s Chartroux, the closeted gay, intellectual (former?) Fascist: a fixer who keeps things functioning, gives the series ballast.

Giuseppe Maggio’s Luigi Poggi, the reckless and ambitious photographer, becomes the exhibition of what happens when creative aspiration slides into exploitation. Francesca Colucci’s Elsa, the young woman betrayed by Poggi’s misuse of her trust, becomes the human core of the show.

But the surrounding ensemble matters just as much:

A feminist critic, Marta Vassalli (portrayed by Elena Radonicich), adds another layer. She is fiercely opposed to Playmen on principle—yet respects Adelina as a woman surviving in a man’s world. Their exchanges are some of the best in the series: tense, challenging, thoughtful. Marta isn’t an antagonist; she’s the moral conscience reminding the viewer that liberation and exploitation often travel in dangerously close company.

This wider cast turns the series into a mosaic—one in which every character represents the Italy Adelina is pushed to navigate.

A world built on pressure

The structure remains the same: we begin in 1975, with Adelina celebrated for reshaping Italy’s conversation, before being yanked back to 1970 to watch her endure the trenches that made that moment possible. But the ensemble deepens the effect. Each secondary character adds their own form of pressure—legal, personal, ideological, or emotional.

Few shows have captured the mechanics of censorship so accurately. Here we see repression not as a dramatic knock on the door but as the dull throb of bureaucracy—seizures, missing shipments, mysterious delays in distribution. What’s powerful is how the ensemble cast mirrors these pressures: each character is another system Adelina must navigate, negotiate with, or resist.

The series also evokes the look and feel of the early to mid‑1970s, the period in which most of the story unfolds exceptionally well. The production nails the era’s visual texture — the cars, the fashion, and the interiors all feel convincingly of their time — from wood‑paneled living rooms and patterned upholstery to period‑correct tailoring, hairstyles and dashboard layouts. Those details do more than decorate the set: they ground the characters and their choices, making the world feel lived‑in and historically specific while quietly amplifying the drama.

Consent as the real battleground

The Poggi–Elsa storyline still sits at the heart of Playmen, but with the expanded cast, the show creates a fuller map of how consent is eroded across the culture.

Chartroux’s struggle with his sexuality adds another dimension, illustrating how the denial of consent (in all its forms—sexual, economic, political) is not isolated but part of a broad pattern of silencing and control.

Adelina’s response is the moral hinge: she insists on context. She refuses to treat women’s bodies as décor or women’s pain as currency. In an industry built on sensation, her commitment to meaning becomes a kind of rebellion. Though at times she falters or mis-steps.

Seven episodes of building—and buying—freedom

The expanded cast makes Adelina’s victories feel earned. She’s not fighting a single antagonist but a culture: the Church, the police, weak men, predatory men, ideological opponents, victims in need of care, and allies who are vulnerable in their own ways.

The effect is cumulative. Each episode broadens the stakes. Each character contributes to the sense that freedom—editorial or personal—is never given; it is constructed, bargained for, and defended daily.

Verdict

Mrs Playmen becomes far more than a period drama. It’s a story about how societies police desire and punish honesty. It’s about who gets to define “public morality” and whose suffering is quietly excluded from that definition. And it’s about the possibility of decency within an indecent system.

The ensemble cast elevates the series: Crescentini leads with quiet steel; Colella embodies the negative partriachal male; Nigro steadies the ship; Maggio exposes the dangers of unchecked ambition; Radonicich’s feminist critic keeps the questions sharp.

Through all of this, the show returns to one principle—Adelina’s principle:

Run the picture. Tell the truth.

In 1970s Italy, that was radical.
In many ways, it still is.

Reviewed by Maria Camara

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House of Guinness: An Anarchic Take on Ireland’s Brewing Dynasty

September 28, 2025 at 5:08 pm · Filed under Netflix, TV Shows ·Tagged , , ,

Promotional poster for the series 'House of Guinness' featuring the main cast in period attire with a backdrop of a historical painting, along with release details at the bottom.

432 words, 2 minutes read time.

House of Guinness is a swaggering, stylish period drama that plunges into the legacy of Ireland’s most iconic brewing dynasty with all the grit, glamour, and generational chaos you’d expect from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight. Set in 1868 Dublin and New York, the series opens not with solemn mourning but with a riot: the funeral cortège of Sir Benjamin Guinness is besieged by Fenians hurling bottles and curses, a visceral reminder that the patriarch’s death is as politically charged as it is personally disruptive.

The four Guinness children—each flawed, ambitious, and emotionally combustible—are thrust into the spotlight as the family’s fortune and brewery hang in the balance:

  • Arthur Guinness (Anthony Boyle) is the eldest, a libertine Londoner dragged back to Dublin with a chip on his shoulder and a taste for excess.
  • Edward Guinness (Louis Partridge), the youngest, is the brewery’s loyal steward, white-knuckling his way through family dysfunction and public scrutiny.
  • Anne Plunket née Guinness (Emily Fairn) is the only daughter, married off to a minor aristocrat and navigating the social constraints of her era with quiet defiance.
  • Benjamin Guinness (Fionn O’Shea) is the overlooked middle child, a sweet-hearted drunk with a gambling problem and a knack for disappearing when things get serious.

The plot pivots on the reading of Sir Benjamin’s will, which awards the brewery and fortune jointly to Arthur and Edward—on the condition that neither can walk away without forfeiting everything to the other. Anne and Ben are written out entirely, sparking a season-long reckoning with power, legacy, and betrayal.

Knight’s signature use of anachronistic music is in full force here, with tracks from The Wolfe Tones, Kneecap, and Fontaines D.C. injecting raw energy and political edge into the 19th-century setting. It’s a technique he famously deployed in Peaky Blinders, and again in SAS: Rogue Heroes, where modern soundscapes underscore historical drama. The show also features Irish-language dialogue, with on-screen translations stamped in bold, a stylistic choice that reinforces cultural authenticity while echoing Knight’s approach in Rogue Heroes.

Visually, House of Guinness is lush and kinetic—rain-slicked cobblestones, candlelit parlours, and the industrial sprawl of the brewery all rendered with cinematic flair. But it’s the emotional stakes and sibling dynamics that drive the drama, as Arthur and Edward clash over vision, values, and the ghosts of their father’s empire.

If Downton Abbey was a slow pour, House of Guinness is a shot of poitín chased with a punch to the gut. It’s Downton Abbey on speed—a riotous blend of family drama, political unrest, and punk-infused period storytelling that leaves you thirsty for more

By Maria Camara

Picture credit: By Netflix – https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/house-of-guinness-photos-release-date-news, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=81196719

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The Sandman: Dreams, Power, and the Fictions That Shape Us

June 8, 2025 at 9:58 am · Filed under Netflix, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

656 words, 3 minutes read time.

When Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, is captured by an occultist seeking power, the world begins to unravel. Without dreams, people fall into eternal sleep or spiral into madness. After decades in captivity, Morpheus escapes and sets out to rebuild his broken realm — the Dreaming — and restore balance between worlds. But the more he tries to reassert control, the more he is forced to reckon with change, memory, and the cost of power.

Title card for _The Sandman_ featuring the show's name in an ethereal font against a cloudy, dark background with a full moon.

The Sandman, adapted from Neil Gaiman’s celebrated comic series, isn’t just a fantasy tale. It’s a meditation on how we make sense of life through the stories we tell ourselves — and what happens when those stories break down. At its heart is Morpheus, played with distant intensity by Tom Sturridge. He’s not your typical protagonist. Cold, precise, and seemingly devoid of empathy, Morpheus begins the series focused solely on recovering the tools of his office. But beneath the impassive surface is a god haunted by his own rigidity.

One of the more surprising and affecting parts of the series is the glimpse we get into his past relationships — especially with his former wife, Calliope. Their story is one of love crushed by pride and pain, and though it’s only briefly touched on, it casts a long shadow over Morpheus’s motivations. There’s real regret in the way he looks back — not with sentimentality, but with a deep, unspoken ache. Their estrangement isn’t just tragic; it reveals the emotional cost of Morpheus’s detachment. He can govern dreams, but he can’t easily confront his own.

That emotional distance is mirrored in another storyline — one of the show’s quiet masterpieces — “A Dream of a Thousand Cats.” Told from the point of view of a cat who seeks revenge against humanity, it’s a beautifully drawn fable of uprising and belief. The cats once ruled the earth, we’re told, until humans dreamed it otherwise. Now, one cat tries to gather others to dream a new reality — one where cats reclaim their rightful dominion. The story is simple but pointed: dreams are not idle things. They can shape worlds. It’s both whimsical and chilling, and adds a layer of political charge to the series’ broader themes.

The show’s greatest strength lies in how it handles its metaphysical stakes with emotional intimacy. Morpheus isn’t just restoring a kingdom — he’s learning, slowly and painfully, what it means to be responsible not just for a realm, but for the beings who live within and outside of it. He may begin the series thinking only of order and rules, but by the end, he’s started to see the value of flexibility, compassion, and even forgiveness.

Surrounding him is a cast of cosmic figures and mortals who each test his worldview. Death, warm and grounded, contrasts his chill severity. Desire, ever scheming, forces him to consider the murkier side of power. And Lucifer — played with elegant menace — offers a mirror of pride unchecked by mercy.

The visual style is dark and sumptuous, part gothic horror, part dream logic. From the crumbling halls of the Dreaming to the pale light of an eternal library, each set-piece feels lived-in and mythic without veering into cliché. It looks expensive but never soulless. Every image serves the tone — solemn, sometimes brutal, occasionally tender.

The Sandman is about the struggle to govern a world of stories. It’s about how we live by dreams — of love, freedom, vengeance, salvation — and what happens when those dreams betray us. It asks whether gods can change, whether old rules still serve us, and whether holding on too tightly to a story can do more harm than good.

Morpheus remains, even at the end, an ambiguous figure. He’s not quite a hero. He’s too flawed, too austere. But he is something rarer — a character learning, slowly, what it means to be human. And that, in a show about gods and monsters, is perhaps the most powerful magic of all.

A review by Mia Fulga

Picture credit: By Premiere episode, “Sleep of the Just”, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68822070

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Sirens (2025): A Netflix Psychological Drama Unraveled

June 1, 2025 at 10:10 am · Filed under Netflix, TV Shows, What We've Been Watching ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

494 words, 3 minutes read time.

Sirens is a Netflix original drama series that follows Simone (Milly Alcock), a troubled young woman who becomes entangled with Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore), the glamorous but manipulative head of a falcon rescue charity. After a chance encounter, Simone is drawn into Michaela’s rarefied world, where appearances deceive and power is quietly exerted under the guise of care. As Simone begins working at the charity, her sister Devon (Meghann Fahy) grows suspicious, while their estranged father (Bill Camp) forces long-buried family tensions to the surface. Meanwhile, Michaela’s husband Peter (Kevin Bacon) wrestles with his own sense of disillusionment, especially in his fractured relationships with his children from a previous marriage—strained further by Michaela’s cold attitude towards them.

The series unfolds as a slow-burning psychological thriller and character study, exploring themes of control, vulnerability, and emotional inheritance.

Julianne Moore plays Michaela with unsettling charm. On the surface, she is composed, elegant, and philanthropic. But beneath that lies a web of emotional manipulation and covert cruelty. Her falcon rescue charity becomes a metaphor for her life—containing wildness, taming others, and displaying them on her terms.


She is the cold centre of the series. She exudes calm authority and grace, but beneath this surface lies manipulation of the most insidious kind. Moore plays her with unnerving precision, never overplaying but always suggesting something toxic under the polish. Kevin Bacon’s Peter is equally well-drawn—a man too weary to rebel, but too aware to remain comfortable. His guilt over past mistakes, including the breakdown with his children, lingers in every scene he shares with Michaela.

Milly Alcock brings raw vulnerability to Simone, a young woman whose search for direction and stability makes her susceptible to Michaela’s grooming. Her arc is tragic and tense—Simone wants to belong, but at what cost? Her sister Devon, played with sharpness by Meghann Fahy, is more grounded, but no less damaged. Devon’s attitude toward sex is telling: confident yet defensive, shaped by unresolved traumas and emotional neglect. Their father, played with grit and fatigue by Bill Camp, hovers like a storm cloud, reminding us of the toxic legacy both sisters are trying to escape or remake.

Though much of the narrative centres on this dysfunctional triangle of Michaela, Simone, and Peter, minor characters are given careful shading. One in particular, Louis, seems at first peripheral but becomes crucial as alliances shift. His arc speaks to the series’ broader concern with complicity and the moral grey areas people navigate in pursuit of survival or self-preservation.

Sirens succeeds as both class satire and psychological drama. The charity setting provides a fitting backdrop for a show obsessed with image versus intent. The moody soundtrack and precise cinematography echo the show’s themes: cold surfaces, hidden violence. With standout performances from its core cast and sharp, layered writing, Sirens is a compelling examination of emotional power, trauma, and the deceptive appeal of safety.

Review by Mia Fulga

Picture credit

By https://www.netflix.com/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80037318


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Top Netflix Picks: Social Issues in October Films

October 3, 2024 at 7:46 am · Filed under Culture Vulture, Film & DVD Reviews, Netflix, TV Shows ·Tagged , , , ,

414 words, 2 minutes read time.

Here are the Culture Vulture selections on Netflix this October, featuring films that tackle complex social, political, and ethical issues:

Boyz n the Hood (1991)

Available October 1

This gripping drama, directed by John Singleton, follows the lives of three young men growing up in the Crenshaw ghetto of Los Angeles. As they navigate the harsh realities of race, relationships, violence, and limited opportunities, the film offers a searing critique of systemic racism and the cycles of violence in marginalized communities. Singleton’s storytelling highlights the challenges of coming of age in an environment shaped by social inequity.

Elysium (2013)

Available October 1

Neill Blomkamp’s dystopian sci-fi thriller takes place in 2154, where the wealthy elite live in luxury on a man-made space station, while the rest of humanity struggles on a decimated Earth. Matt Damon’s character embarks on a dangerous mission to bring equality to these two polarized worlds. The film raises questions about wealth disparity, class division, and the moral cost of technological advancement, making it a sharp allegory of modern-day inequality.

Jarhead (2005)

Available October 1

Directed by Sam Mendes, Jarhead is a psychological exploration of a U.S. Marine sniper’s experience during the Gulf War. Told from the perspective of a soldier grappling with isolation, boredom, and the disconnect from home, the film offers a critical look at the mental toll of warfare. It dives deep into themes of masculinity, the futility of conflict, and the emotional scars soldiers carry long after the battle ends.

Selma (2014)

Available October 16

Ava DuVernay’s Selma recounts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, a pivotal event in the fight for equal voting rights. The film masterfully depicts the courage and resilience of the Civil Rights Movement, shedding light on the persistent racial injustice in America. With David Oyelowo’s stirring portrayal of Dr. King, Selma is an inspiring and vital look at the struggle for justice, equality, and social change.

Yintah (2024)

Available October 18

This powerful documentary examines the ongoing resistance of the Wet’suwet’en people against the construction of pipelines on their unceded territory. Directed by Brenda Michell, Michael Toledano, and Jennifer Wickham, Yintah centers on the voices and struggles of Indigenous leaders like Freda and Molly Wickham, exploring themes of environmental activism, colonialism, and Indigenous sovereignty. The film raises critical ethical questions about land rights and the fight to protect sacred spaces.

Be sure to check out these thought-provoking films on Netflix this October!

By Pat Harrington

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Katie Folger: From being mentored by Robert Redford to Creating ‘Getting in Bed with the Pizza Man’

August 20, 2024 at 4:15 pm · Filed under Comedy, Drama, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2024 ·Tagged , , , ,

Counter Culture jumped at the chance to interview comedian and writer Katie Folger. Katie was performing her one woman show, Getting in Bed with the Pizza Man at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe.

Katie Folger

We talked to her about the show and her future plans.

What inspired you to create Getting in Bed with the Pizza Man?

Well, a number of things! I think the show is a product of an amalgamation of influences on my life over the years. I think a primary one that I like to talk about is when I was 20 and had the fortune of essentially crossing paths with Robert Redford, if you don’t know. At my university and through a very fortunate series of events, he became my mentor for about six or seven years when I was quite young. And Bob actually was, we were sitting across from each other like this at a dinner. And my first dinner I had with him and he was really the driving force encouraging me to write my own work.

Yeah, because I was. I was young. I was you know, charismatic girl, which often, you know, if you have a knack for anything artistic or especially for me and for performance, be an actor, be an actor. And I was, but I was always interested in writing, even as a child. And and he was really like the first major person in my life, obviously, by someone so esteemed and brilliant. And he told me. I know you can act. I don’t even think you act. You’re a genuine person. What I want to hear is your voice. And so that really was the major first part in my desire to make my own work. Then my program at school was also a heavy influence of new work. That was the focus of the program. And so there was like a whole, it was called the New Work Festival. And so it was so special, the university would dump a ton of resources into it. So I was also a part of so many new plays.

And yeah, that was like those were kind of the seeds. And then this I’ve been writing behind the scenes are really my whole life. I have stacks of journals just full of terrible writing. And then eventually, you know, sometimes you hit on something and over the years, of course,

if you write everyday, which I do just for me, you get better. And so I wrote this story. It was it would. I’m very much inspired by a trip that I had taken to Denver, actually. Three summers, or yeah, three summers ago now. It was right during the pandemic and 2021, ’cause the vaccines had just come out, so people were seeing travel again. And I had a really, I think when I first started performing this play, I was a little bit more cheeky about whether it was true or not true. And I think now I’m sort of like later in the life cycle of the show. So like, it is very much based upon a series of events that happened that were quite strange.

And all of the, you know, the end of the show with the pizza ,all of that is like happened. And so when I started telling this story to friends, they were like, You should do something with this.

That was really odd. And so, yeah, I’ve always, as a writer, been most inspired by telling my own stories. I’m not as much of like a, like a fantasy writer or even like, I would say my preferred genre is memoir-style fiction. Just because I would say the main reason for that is because again, a primary influence for my work is sharing my, my uninhibited opinion and perspective from my, from a, from a female perspective. And and within as much detail as possible. And so when I wrote this story, that’s all I was trying to do. I wasn’t really writing a comedy. I just wrote a story. And then when I read it to people for the first time in November 2021, people laughed the wholetime. That was like, interesting. Yeah. So those are kind of some of some of the seeds of influence.

And then I’ve also, I got really excited about solo shows about three or four years ago. Just as a poem, I felt like it seemed scary to me. And I, as a human and as an artist, have always been interested in that, which kind of scared me. Yes. And so, yeah, I wrote this in the short story. I had a best friend read it and she was like, Katie, you’ve always wanted to do a one-woman show. I feel like this could work. And so that’s kind of how it all started.

One of the aspects that I found very impressive was, you know, the physicality of your performance.

Thank you. Yeah.

Do you have some kind of dance background?

Yeah. And what’s funny is, so obviously, as we saw, this show had no tech, no sounds, no lights. The full version of the show, which I think I had mentioned that night, has all of the bells and whistles. Yes. Ihave had this microphone version of the show built for a while just so we could easily travel the show. This wa sthe first time.

Because I had received some feedback. Everybody was like, why don’t you? Because the physicality was not in this version of the show. And I was like, well, if I’m coming to Fringe, it’s one of the people, a lot of people say it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the show and like surprising. So I built it. I built it into the show, you know, just those shitty theatre chairs on the stage. Like that was a lastminute plan, but.

Yeah, I have a background in dance. I started. I was a dancer well before I was an actor. I started dancing at the age of two and I was primarily a dancer. I mean we were I was in four to five hours of dance after school every day for 14 years. I was on the dance scene.

You can tell.

Thank you. But and then but it’s kept up with me because I’m also so I transitioned from dance. Well, I started acting that kind of took my focus and. But I’ve been doing yoga for like very like I’ve been practicing it very dedicatedly for now. How old? Yeah, 16years. So since I quit dancing, I transitioned onto yoga. And so, yeah, you can kind of see all of those influences in in the show.

I do yoga myself. Oh, nice.

I’ve done it for years. I keep trying it. So it keeps me good.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s very good. It is good.

So, you know, you talk about sort of personal relationships and sexual relationships and it kind of, I suppose there’s a, kind of, a theme of identity there. You know, there were a lot of young women in the audience when I went there.

There were.

What do you think that they draw from the stories?

I think for me, as a young woman, like I said in the show, I think kind of like a main thesis statement is that as a woman, you’re never taught that sexuality or sex is more real, especially in like a more Western conservative mindset, patriarchal society. I think that’s the main part.

I think so many young women in this society and and there’s so many French shows that in their own ways actually talk about these things, which I think only underscores the universal nature of of You know, this theme of of the fact that obviously we’re in a patriarchal society and that, you know, women are objects to be desired. And so if you’re desired, then yes, OK, I show up in this thing and I ain’t getting you what you want. But I think with my show,

I I say this a lot when I talk to people about the show. I have a great friend who says the art that we write is the medicine that we need. And so for me, as you can see, like I was just, I was processing and for years processing these like. these grander themes and trying to flip the script of my own life and and kind of take the reins of my experience. Because really for so many years I was just kind of floating like a feather, just like the character in the show, you know, and and trying to figure out what sexuality and relationships meant to me. And it’s funny, like I feel that This show really helped me process a lot of those things.

And And I really, since I wrote the show, my life has changed quite a bit. And now, you know, I’m in I’m in a really happy relationship. And it’s like now it’s interesting because, like, I feel like the first iteration of this was what are my physical needs? What do I really feel like physically? And now it’s what do I think emotionally? What do I think about marriage? What I think about all of these expectations, what I am to be a woman, emotionally.

So anyway, like it’s constant, constant learning.

Do you journal?

Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah, every day, pretty much.

I mean, My opinion is that most people aren’t too reflective. about what’s going on in their lives. They’re so busy living lives.

Yeah.

That they don’t have time to pause and reflect on it.

Sure, sure

And I mean, it did come through very strongly that you had taken out time to sort of think about relationships.

Yeah. I came across very strongly. Almost too much time.

And, you know, obviously what you’ve said there, there is a serious theme toit, but your show is also very, very entertaining.

Thank you.

It’s also to a certain extent what an old fashioned word we would use is “racy”. I think that is the word. Yeah, I’d use. Yeah. How do you balance all that and get the balance right in that?

Well, I think a huge piece of finding that kind of like that like. walking that tightrope of, you know, going deep into the core with it, and also staying light is with my collaborator and director of the show, Matrix Kilgore. Matrix really helped shape the really–

Second opinion.

Yeah, so the musicality of the show, and, you know, there are these– They’re honestly my favourite moments, and it’s when when you– like, people laugh when You like totally flip what you were doing. That gets a laugh. So, you know, my favourite moments sometimes when I’m performing are when I’m hanging out in a more serious space with the audience and I can feel like, you know, we’re all, they’re really watching me and I can see everybody’s eyes and then I cut it into a completely different tone and then everybody laughs. That’s really fun. But I think, you know, I think that’s I I think. You know, there is that craft to it. But I think for me as an artist, that is my sweet spot. It’s I’m not just, I’m not a surface level comedian. I’m not like ha ha jokes, jokes, jokes. I’m also not just sort of. I mean, I am funny, but I’m also, I think I’m only funny because it’s just kind of. It’s observational humour.

Yes. Yeah. I think you send that in your review, which I really appreciate it because it is. That’s what I and it’s from your own experience. And obviously if people, I suppose everything’s had certain experiences in their life, but similar if not the same. So, you know, people can relate to it as well.

Exactly. And is this yourfirst time in Edinburgh?

Yes. . Oh, my gosh. I I absolutely love this festival. Yeah, I was. I’ve been kind of saying, I feel like I came on a blind date with friends. Like, I’ve never been. I didn’t know what to expect. I just booked things ahead of time and had people help me. Didn’t even really do that much research because I didn’t have time because I’ve been touring the show in the States all year and in order to even have the funds to come and do this. And there are so many times, ’cause it’s so expensive to come do this. Yes, it’s things. And it continues to be more expensive and little things come up. And there were a lot of times where I tried to talk myself out of doing this, ’cause even before getting here, it’s been a really challenging year, a really rewarding and like successful year for me, but the most challenging alongside that, those wins and like the recognition, it’s been so hard.

To, like, pull this stuff off independently. And so, yeah, there were a lot of times where I wanted to bail on fringe for those tired. Yes. And because I’m also producing the show, I’ve had, of course, help. But I am the primary force that is driving this. It’s not just creative. I’m I’m producing.

And yes. And I’m so glad that I didn’tbail. And I can think, I can completely attribute. the continuation of this to my loved ones and my team. Yeah. My publicist in Austin, my director, my boyfriend, my family, my best friend.

You got them all working.

Yeah, well, they were all like, No, like, you have to go do this. And And my manager too. And so I’m I’m in love with stuff. Like me and my, I have like seven really close friends here and also my boyfriend and he and I just feel like this is one of the most special things we’ve ever done and it’s so inspiring and healing.

Do you think you’d come back next year?

I’m, I’m, yeah, like I’m. I would absolutely consider doing this again. I I think it’s definitely in my wheelhouse. I can also see the benefit of like continuing to come back. Yeah. I think I, now that I’ve done it once, I can, I now know what not to do. Yes. And what to do. I did not know what to do. Like, I made some big mistakes in coming here, namely in where I put my money and where to invest resources that I worked really hard to have and I put them in some of not the best places. So, but yeah, regardless, I think, like, I came here and I’ve achieved what I set out to do. pretty much after the opening night, so I’ve just been having fun ever since.

So, I mean, if you’ve if you’re a writer and a performer, you’ve got a lot of choices about what you might do next.

Yeah.

What are your plans going forward?

Yeah, so I think… I mean, it’s sort of maybe cliché at this point, but a major reason I would even, like Ed Fringe was even on my radar was the Phoebe Waller-Bridge Fleabag. My show is much different than Fleabag. I mean, there are adjacent themes, but it’s really like, I call it the Fleabag model of coming and doing work here, getting some eyes on it, getting some recognition, and taking it to rank a series. And I’ve had a series concepts that I’ve been ideating One for several years and I have a bunch of notes on my iPhone of like, yeah, all of these different episode ideas. It’s a comedy. It’s yeah not quite like maybe I could have an episode that in my it’s a manuscript, but it’s more so the tone and the type of character. And who would she do that with? Yeah, yeah, I so I’m deeply embedded in the often film theme I have been for. I guess, 14 years now. And I have a– I’m such a heart for grassroots development. I think that’s very much within the ethos of the community, largely, I would say, inspired by Richard Linklater, if you’re familiar with him, and all of the people around him. I kind of wrote– those people are kind of like my mentors. Umm I kind of rose up in the scene, like Rank, Linklater, and some other filmmaker. that are in his generation, they were kind of the people that grew me.

And so I’m really interested in kind of carrying the torch of making within the community, but then also like bridging the community into higher earning tiers and also more, more eyes, larger audiences. Austin is very much an indie film scene. Yes. So yeah, I have like I really wish and have fantasized about creating a project that activates and engages my community while also calling in like the dream would be to have a bunch of people within my community cast or working on it, but then also getting key. Yeah, providing work to the community and so on. But then a few higher profile comedians who, and I’ve even been hereat shows this week and watching people, and I’ve been like, oh, that would be a good person. Oh, you’d be a good person to have like write with me or to have in the show.

Yeah. But I have these amazing managers now that I got through the show, and I feel like they came on to my team for one of the main reasons that we can develop this show and sell it, hopefully by next year, and like the actual show,

Would you try Netflix?

Yeah, yeah, like a streaming service would be the goal. Yeah. Yeah

Because they do a lot of comedy.

Yes. And I and I want this one. I I obviously would love to be in it. I want it to be more so about like a community of friends, the actual show. So more than one storyline. Yeah. Iwant it to be like a group of people.

Yeah. Yeah And. What’s the kind of, how would you say the audience have reacted to everything?

You know, I always kind of maybe this is a bit self-deprecating. I’m always like, no one’s ever going to come out to me and tell me they don’t like it.

I know people who would.

Oh, really? OK, good. I will say from my perspective, I’ve been observing my audiences and everybody’s really engaged and leaning in. Nobody’s dragging over their phones. My boyfriend was standing outside of the theatre, like he didn’t go watch the show that night and he was watching people come out and he was like nervous ’cause he was like, and he said that they all were saying how phenomenal and amazing the show was.

Yeah, yeah Thank you very much for this interview. It’s much appreciated.

Thank you. So lovely to chat.

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