March Culture Roundup

Everything I've watched, read and listened to in the month of March

February's over which means spring is on it's way! Here are my March picks…

The Choir of Man

Quickfire summary: Set in a lock-in at a typical British pub, this jukebox musical is performed by nine singing men.

Rating: 3.5/5

My friend and I booked this on the day so we had little-to-no expectations. What we were met with was 90 minutes of fun, singing, dancing and pint-pouring! The nine singing men were great, belting out songs like Luther Vandross's Dance With My Father and Sia's Chandelier. It even involved some crowd participation, with members of the audience invited to come up and join in on stage.

Mary & George

Quickfire summary: Based (loosely) on a true story, George Villiers and his mother, Mary, vie for power using everything in their arsenal to get to the top of British society.

Rating: 3/5

I really wanted to love this, but I came away feel underwhelmed (although the costumes were outstanding, well done Annie Symons). With Julianne Moore starring opposite Nicholas Galitzine, I felt the pace was stilted, with the theme of 'manipulate and have sex to gain power' growing rather tired by the seventh episode. However, I did really enjoy Galitzine's performance (this feels like a more serious role for him) and Moore's British accent was mostly believable (again, a shoutout to her amazing rabbit headress).

ACOTAR

Rating: 5/5

As a reluctant zillennial, I finally succumed to the allure of booktok and could no longer ignore the many recommendations to pick up ACOTAR.

While on holiday, I felt frustrated that I couldn't focus, barely reading a page of my book before I was itching to scroll Insta or have a swim in the pool (which is very unlike me!). However, after telling myself I needed to get through at least one, I buckled down and fully immersed myself in this fantasy series. I don't think I've read the genre since I was at uni, and at first found the world-building hard to follow.

But there's something about the way Maas writes – and puts traditional myths and tropes on their heads – that has had me absolutely hooked. Adventure, romance and, huge plot twists and a lot of strong independent women (who actually stand up to the typical 'big strong sexy' men) has had me reading a book per day. Absolutely obsessed.

Cowboy Carter

Rating: 4.5/5

AAAAnd because I need a soundtrack to my reading, I'm thrilled Queen Bey released an absolute whopper of an album that I've been playing on repeat. Although at first I thought it was too long, I love nearly all of the songs, including Amen, American Requieum, Alligator Tears, Sweet/Honey/Buckin', Tyrant – and, after playing it over 100 times, I'm still not over Levii's Jeans (inject it into my veins!!).

Plus, I can't seem to get LIKE A MECHANICAL BULL out of my head. As always, she's Beyonce has smashed it out of the park.