Poetry
STAR POems: The Plot
By Helen Salsbury I went in search of the plot, in the metaphorical forest, where all the trees looked the same. I went with an older, American Writer, who’d seen it all before. ‘The story,’ [… read more ]
Search Results for the plot
Culture
Review: The Quivers Horror Puppet Show
Andrew Larder enjoys a madcap mishmash of puppetry, music, drag, vulgarity and hilarity. ‘Don’t dream it, be it,’ is the mantra sung towards the end of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Drag queen Fanny Quivers [… read more ]
Culture
Operation Santa: A Brand New Christmas Musical
Writing a 21st century family Christmas musical isn’t easy. Performed at the TPS Studio, Petersfield, Operation Santa weaves together the worlds of business, political injustice, fake news and Yuletide magic into a dramatic, touching and [… read more ]
Politics
Making a Conspiracy Out of a Crisis: Covid-19, Fake News and Anti-Elite Anger
Dr Stephen Harper, media studies lecturer at the University of Portsmouth and member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain (SPGB), argues that Covid-related misinformation is a product of our paranoid and resentful age of [… read more ]
Culture
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet: ‘A Gigantic Puzzle of a Film’
Local resident and film enthusiast Paul Toomer reviews Christopher Nolan’s new film, Tenet, after returning to the cinema for the first time since lockdown. Ever since his debut in 2000 with Memento, Christopher Nolan has [… read more ]
Memoir
Something for the Weekend: On Language and Pop Culture Prejudices
Ian Morris continues his new weekly column, and after reading Ian Fleming’s Bond novel Moonraker, considers the changing nature of language over time. Does erasing evidence of past prejudice run the risk we forget it ever [… read more ]
Culture
Lockdown Novelist: How I Finished My Book in a Pandemic
Christine Lawrence describes finishing her novel, which had not been touched for a year, while in lockdown, and how she managed to write over 87,000 words during the pandemic. I sit and stare into the [… read more ]
Memoir
Lockdown With My Family in Southsea: Day 74, When a Toddler Complains
Local parent, researcher and writer, Maddie Wallace, continues her daily diary describing the experience first, of self-isolating, and now of being in lockdown with her children in Southsea. We’re at Day 74, and A Maddie’s youngest has initiated a [… read more ]
Culture
89 Not Out: Day 66, There’s Nothing Like a Good (Audio)Book
S&C contributor and Pompey Politics Podcast host Ian Morris shares his experience of the lockdown, as someone with diabetes. It’s Day 66 and Ian shares some of his best – and worst – reads from [… read more ]
Memoir
89 Not Out: Days 4 & 5, Dog-Walking, Supermarkets and Toilet Roll
S&C contributor and Pompey Politics Podcast host Ian Morris shares his experience of self-isolation as someone with diabetes, following government advice on 16th March. Day 4 of Ian’s ’12 week club’ diary, and Ian walks his guide [… read more ]