Review: You Won't Break My Soul, Oran Mor, Glasgow
When Beyoncé came to Murrayfield in 2023 as part of her Renaissance tour, the bootylicious diva caused a sensation. Beyond the show itself, there was likely plenty of drama for her fan base who worship at her feet, and not just among the single ladies either.
Take Jordan and Russell. The neon pink boudoir that passes for the living room of these gay best friends in JD Stewart's new play for A Play, a Pie and a Pint's lunchtime theatre season may be a shrine to their queen, but it also requires an overload of Febreze to clear the body odours that hang around.
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Partly responsible for these is the bit of rough trade Jordan who has just beat a hasty retreat with two stolen tickets in hand. When Russell gets home, the pair's despair at their loss sees them embark on a quest for replacements that takes them from their friend Sooz's cafe to the local cop shop that seems to be run by a refugee from the Village People. Finally, they enter a drag contest at real life Glasgow nitespot, Delmonica's, where first prize might just get them to the show.
So far so camp in Laila Noble's production, in which Jamie McKillop and James Peake rise to the occasion as Jordan and Russell, who reaffirm their personal bond as they revive their olds double act on stage. Aided by Kaylah Copeland as Sooz, and with an extra special guest in the house, the inevitable floor show all this has been leading to is delivered with glamtastic abandon in a play that goes beyond its initial japes to a more serious look at friendship, staying true to oneself and the restorative powers of a life on stage for these destiny's children in waiting.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Can't pay, won't pay: impoverished streaming services are driving viewers back to piracy
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For my teenage self in the 00s, torrenting was the norm. Need the new Coldplay album on your iPod? The Pirate Bay. The 1968 adaptation of Romeo and Juliet? The Pirate Bay. Whatever you needed was accessible with just a couple of clicks. But as smartphones proliferated, so did Spotify, the music streaming platform that is also headquartered in Sweden. The same Scandinavian country had become a hub of illegal torrenting and simultaneously conjured forth its solution. 'Spotify would never have seen the light of day without The Pirate Bay,' Per Sundin, the then managing director of Universal Music Sweden, reflected in 2011. But music torrenting died out as we all either listened with ads or paid for the subscription. And when Netflix launched in Sweden in late 2012, open talk of torrenting moving images also stopped. Most of the big shows and a great collection of award-winning films could all be found for just 79 SEK (£6) a month. 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The Medici understood the value linked to access. A client could travel from Rome to London and still draw on their credit, thanks to a network built on trust and interoperability. If today's studios want to survive the storm, they may need to rediscover that truth.
Daily Mirror
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Cooking With the Stars contestant admits he was 'banned' from sitting next to co-star
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North Wales Live
17 hours ago
- North Wales Live
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