April — The People's Movies | April 2025
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Play review: 'Tending', Riverside Studios
Critically acclaimed at Edinburgh Fringe 2023, ‘Tending’ is an urgently eye-opening and timely play about the experiences of NHS nurses. Written by El Blackwood, who also co-stars alongside actors Ben Lynn and Mara Allen, it is a verbatim enactment of interviews with over seventy nurses, conducted over a two-year period. On the stage are three chairs, and three actors in matching blue scrubs, but the minimalist set is instantly transformed by the absorbing narrative and skill of the acting, totally immersing the audience into its world. We are taken with them on the exhausting night shifts, during the nursing strikes, and in the ICU during the chaos of the first wave of Covid. We hear about the individual decisions to go into nursing, and from those who choose to leave, as well as those who commit themselves unconditionally to the profession. Throughout the performance, we learn of people’s favourite nursing memories, alongside the most painful. ‘Tending’ powerfully bursts any bubble m...
Inspiring the next generation of feminists in Amy Poehler’s 'Moxie'.
The film begins with a nightmare. Our 16-year-old protagonist, Vivian (Hadley Robinson) is running through the woods at night. There are rustles in the trees around her and an ominous sense of dread. She opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out. This is ultimately the central premise of the film: a young woman finding her voice, and ultimately a collective female voice, out of a silenced scream. Cut to present day, where the annual high school "rankings" have just been announced, categorising the girls into labels which include “best rack” and “most bangable”. Detestable football jock, Mitchell (Patrick Swarzenegger) personifies this day-to-day objectification that pervades the daily lives of the school’s young women. When he begins to bother new girl Lucy (Alycia Pascual-Peña), Vivian tries to reassure her by telling her to just keep her head down, to which Lucy corrects her: “I’m gonna keep my head up... high." After being ranked “most obedient”, and disco...
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