The Lion King

Yesterday I was up in London to see The Lion King musical...  WHAT A SHOW! My favourite scene has to be the opening where all the puppets bring the African plains to life to the tune of Disney's classic the circle of life. I think my favourite puppets were the zebras just because the way they've captured their movement is so realistic, not that other puppets didn't capture the real animals movement, but the zebras really caught my eye! The whole theatre exploded into applause as the final puppets made their way on to the stage to complete the scene for an opening to rival the finales of most shows!

The production design was wonderfully exotic, and I love the way the actors are true to their cartoon characters in their intonation and tone of their voices. Rafiki is my favourite character in the Lion King just because you never know what he is going to do! In the stage version the actress has the most spectacular vocal range and the best parts of the songs to sing (in my opinion!)

The way the film has been adapted to utilise the spaces and strengths of a theatre I found really interesting (since I'm studying a module on adaption between stage, screen and novel!) and they have been so innovative and creative when designing the stampeded scene and communicating the disarray and poverty that Scar brought to the pride lands.

In short a wonderful show, and one to catch if you have the time (and the spare money cause those tickets prices are sky high!) if you might be planning a special trip to London!

Sexual Harassment on Youtube: Alex Day

Firstly, I'm so sorry for anyone who has ever suffered from sexual harassment, it's horrifying that it occurs in our society today. Hopefully our generation, who has already talked about the unacceptability of sexual harassment extensively, will mean future generations will grow up inherently knowing it's something that should never happen. For this reason I wanted to put down my thought process relating to the Youtuber Alex Day. I'm going to refer to him as Day in this post, because 'Alex' seems too friendly for someone I don't know, and I certainly do not think of him as a friend.

I was disturbed, shocked and appalled when the allegations of sexual harassment against Day came out earlier this year.
I liked Day as a Youtuber. I enjoyed his content and admired his determination in regard to his music.
I was even more surprised when he decided to return to youtube earlier this month. I hadn't unsubscribed from him since the truth came out, so the video popped up in my newsfeed and out of curiosity I did watch it.

The release of his video coincided with the truth about Jason coming out, and a number of other Youtubers had released videos speaking out about ousting sexual harassment and sexual predators from the youtube community. I had been watching those videos earlier in the day Day released his video, yet, as I say out of curiosity as to what Day might have to say, I watched his video.

And I was nearly taken in again. In his video he comes across as reasonable, he presents himself exactly in a way that one might start to forget his past behaviour. This is when the alarm bells started ringing in my head.

I had been to the cinema and watched the epic Gone Girl around the time Day posted the video, and in that film the public's perception of the main male character is completely changed from negative to positive in one tv interview because of the way he portrayed himself. I'm not suggesting that Day deliberately portrayed himself the way he did to manipulate his audience, but he was hardly going to try and turn people away from him.

How can I be a better judge of his true character than people who have personally known and interacted with him, who have now dissociated themselves from him and spoken out explicitly encouraring viewers to not support him in their videos. They know Day better than I, or any viewer ever could, and it was on the strength of this realisation that I realised I had nearly been taken in by his manner. That I had nearly forgotten that he has been charged with a serious crime and he had violated and hurt other people. His crime is disrespectful, disgusting and one that I personally regard as one of the worst crimes that can be committed.

Thinking back to the video, at one point he says something along the lines of (I don't want to re-watch the video to find the exact quote) I looked at girls as the opportunity to have sex.
How can any one support that kind of mind set? It fuckin' scared me, (I don't swear so that's the strength of my feelings on this) firstly that anyone could have such a disrespectful, objectifying and opportunistic mind set, and secondly that I nearly continued supporting someone who thought like that. I know, inexcusable as it is, that Day is not the only one to think like this, but I'm writing this post to draw attention to this information about the situation with Day, incase someone who is still subscribed (I am NOT) and might watch any more of Days content to re-constider what they are supporting.

My University (Exeter) is running a campaign against sexual harassment called #NeverOk. It has had global recognition because of the success. The video campaign (including a well known face) can be viewed here #NeverOk video and another informative article I found discussing this subject in the wider community.

P.S. This is not part of youtuber reviews, I'd never include a ex-youtuber with a criminal background in that series. This is just some thoughts I had a few weeks ago but had not got round to putting down until now.

Independent article - Dear young men: The old stereotypes of what it is to be a 'man' are a load of rubbish

First Year Of Uni

Second year to all potential first years out there. I realise this is probably a bad time to post this since most people are either not thinking about uni yet, or are already well into their first term.

However, I'm forgetting that logic for now!

As a second year, you do have more work, greater commitments to societies and still the same desire to go and try all the things you didn't get round to in the first year.

For me this has resulted in feeling like I'm missing out on some things that I'd love to be doing, and also getting stressed about not having enough time for my studying because of commitments to the sports and societies I am involved with.

So my main piece of advice to first years is this...

1) TRY ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU MIGHT POSSIBLY ENJOY!

I spent so much time on short film shoots, went to all the sports training sessions, auditioned for plays, represented the university competitively, wrote and acted radio shows, baked, explored town and basically used my spare time to throw myself into everything. More than once my family reminded me I was here to study!  I hear so many first years say they spent their days sleeping, watching films or recovering from hangovers, and although there is nothing wrong with that, I find it slightly sad that people don't take advantage of all the amazing experiences uni can offer - I mean when else are you going to be able to write and perform your own radio show?

2) Don't forget the work!

Although first year doesn't count towards your degree, it does count if you decide you want to have a study abroad year. Perhaps this is something you might decide you'd like to do late second year, and if you've fluffed up your first year grades, those dreams quickly disappear down the drain so don't be caught out! And secondly, and I think more importantly, coming out of your first year with a really good grade makes you feel great cause it is an awesome achievement! You can enter second year confident of what you can achieve!

So that might seem obvious advice, but I suppose the main message is to live your life to the full and seize all those opportunities that might come your way! Life is for living, so don't let it float on by, and equally don't let it drag you down. Looking at the bigger picture whatever you do with your time at uni will be what is right for you, in your life at that time.

P.S. If you do find first year away at uni hard, don't be scared because you are not alone. Exeter University where I am has an excellent student healthcare centre, anonymous support lines and advice centres, and I'm sure other University's have similar facilities that can help you study and enjoy life as you'd like to. 

Cake alert!

Want to know the recipe for the yummy cupcakes I made on Saturday? Look out for a video with the link in the description coming in out in an hour on my youtube channel RainorShine

If you do have a go at making them, or you've used this recipe before, let me know what you thought! It's one of my favourites :)

THANK YOU!

This is perhaps a small milestone, but THANK YOU FOR 200 VIEWS!!!

In fact at this moments it's 220! That's like a lecture theatre full of people clicking on this blog! It's made my evening and I've just eaten another chocolate cupcake in celebration! 

 I was going to make a little celebration video, but unfortunately my memory card reader has broken. Luckily I have the footage I need for now, but my nice profile picture will have to wait till my new reader arrives, thank goodness for Amazon!