Augustly decorated in medals for conquering the critics – brandishing Golden Globes for best drama and best actress – terrorism drama Homeland arrived at Camp Channel 4 in February, audacious and determined and warranting the anticipation surrounding it. Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), an American marine, has spent a gruelling eight years in enemy captivity; enduring brutal…
Carol Ann Duffy is well known to our generation as the woman who aided the national boredom that was GCSE poetry. For those of us lucky enough to not be overcome with contempt for the first female Poet Laureate, there is a sense of dry, humorous frankness that is represented in her latest collection; The…
In a world where technology is allowing us to become increasingly introverted, yet still retain an air of social community through Facebook, Twitter and smart phones, we’ve lost sight of some of the simple pleasures: having friends round for a binge on Ribena and a WWF Smackdown face-off. Couch multi-player is becoming obsolete as gaming systems progress and are…
Solent University student Alec Dent won last night’s Southampton Chortle Student Comedian Competition heat held at Glen Bar in the Glen Eyre student halls of residence. Sam Jenkins-Shaw of Southampton University also performed in the heats as well as Solent students Andy Field, Sam Marrow, Kieran Murphy and Darryl Edge. Clips of all the participant’s sets can…
Noel Fielding obviously wields an interesting mind in the way he can weave quirky characters and turn a phrase. His appearances on Never Mind The Buzzcocks show that he is, in fact, quite witty, not just weird. So I was interested to see how he writes when given total creative freedom and not in partnership…
If I was to provide you with the word ‘gamer’ I think I can be fairly certain what image that might conjure in your head; that of the nerdy, socially awkward, spotty teenager who spends too much time with computers and not enough time outside. Conjured up during the ’80s and to some extent the…
It is ironic that prior to the BBC iPlayer recording of the ‘Wheelchair’ episode of the second series of Radio 4’s Richard Herring’s Objective runs an advert for Life’s Too Short. For Richard Herring manages to actually achieve what Ricky Gervais claims to do — well-crafted, intelligent comedy on the subject of disability, as opposed…
I’ve got a new favourite TV series, and you absolutely have to watch it. It isn’t very intellectual. People don’t do a lot of staring into the distance. There isn’t loads of blood and torture – nobody gets their chins cut off with industrial pliers. It isn’t set in a 1960s advertising agency, nor do…
The Fades is another show from BBC Three’s growing stack of original British drama. It’s intricate, sprawling, smart and witty. It can also be rather terrifying at times, but in a way more reminiscent of Being Human rather than The Exorcist. The title of the series is the name given to the dead, or rather…
Barnaby Walter gives his view on the heated debate surrounding Clarkson and co.’s behaviour on the BBC show.
Assassin’s Creed returns to consoles this autumn as the stories of Ezio and Altaïr come to a dramatic conclusion. Despite having an annual release date for new titles in the series, the crew behind it have succeeded in bettering themselves, delivering the best instalment of the franchise so far. Revelations follows the continuation of Ezio’s…
Petrolhead gamers of the last decade are undoubtedly more than familiar with the name Need for Speed, and in the last few years the franchise has undergone something of a redefinition of itself and of the racing genre. The Run, Need for Speed’s newest instalment, essentially sticks to the traditional street racing side of things,…
On November 15th 2001, Microsoft and Bungie introduced a new game as a companion release for the first of their Xbox consoles. Featuring a cybernetic super soldier fighting to preserve humanity in the universe against an onslaught of alien invaders, Halo became a worldwide phenomenon. Ten years later and more than 34 million copies of…
World War 3 has arrived with the triumphant return of Activision and Infinity Ward’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare franchise, and the final instalment of the epic three-part campaign concludes the hunt for number one bad guy Vladimir Makarov. The campaign takes place in various familiar locations around the world — London, Berlin, Paris and…