Cultural highlights of 2023 + what to look forward to in 2024
I usually enjoy doing these round-ups, but this year both of my laptops (work and personal) malfunctioned (as I’m typing currently the text is following with a 2 second lag), I had covid, and I suffered from feeling very, very lazy. So it was a pain in the bum. But I made it! Enjoy.
BEST OF 2023 IN CULTURE
TV
The Curse
Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone had a great year. The Curse was hands down the most original, uncomfortable, and genius show to air - and still is as there’s two more eps to go. Every episode is a wild, horrible ride, I am firmly buckled in and I don’t want it to end.
Such Brave Girls
Kat Sadler’s debut series is a dark, dark comedy with jokes about suicide, mental illness and parental abandonment, and it is the most hilarious thing I have seen in a long time. Pure weird, crude, cringe comedy told with a truly unique voice, Kat is a huge talent and this show is a delight.
The Leftovers (season 1)
One of the shows from the Everyone Must Watch These canon I’m slowly catching up with. It took me the entire year, literally, to finish season 1, as I found the bleakness tough to navigate at times. But I finished it finally over this holiday break, and I’m very glad I did. I can see why the show has cult reputation, as it is indeed very good and Damon Lindelof obviously a very talented man. And Justin Theroux is not an eyesore either. No spoilers as I have seasons 2 and 3 to catch up on.
Gavin & Stacey
A British comedy classic about a Welsh woman and an English man who fall in love. This came out in the noughties (and is SO of its time) when James Corden was still likeable but I only just got to it now. Loved every bit of it, every single character is just spot-on. Cried in the finale, sad that there’s no more considering it could’ve gone on forever and ever.
Beef
Big points for originality and casting. Lost something in the end for me, otherwise massively enjoyed the wild ride.
Fleishman is in Trouble
Marmite of a show, I absolutely loved it. I preferred the series to Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel, which was great but lagged in pace whereas I was compelled by every minute of the adaptation. The casting was 10/10, and I enjoy existential narratives which make marriage and convention look about as appealing as a soggy egg and cress sandwhich (some English people find them edible, though, which I cannot but abhor).
The Last of Us
Harrowing, bleak and spooky (the mushroom zombies are terrifying) but equally full of humanity. I particularly enjoyed the weekly episodes, it was nice to gather with friends every Monday to feel the feels (and scream) together.
The Glory
A k-drama about a woman who’s become a teacher so that she can go back to her hometown and get revenge on the rich, twatty group of people who tormented her in school. Satisfying and hooky.
The Sixth Commandment
I’m not usually a fan of true crime TV, but this BBC miniseries was really good. The central villain, priest-in-training Ben, is truly terrifying in a unique way, and the show didn’t feel sensationalist or exploitative like so many examples of this genre.
Others worth mentioning, follow-up seasons etc:
The last season of Succession obvi, The Bear S2, MAFS UK, Love Is Blind who-knows-which-season-number-we-are-at, THE ULTIMATUM: QUEER LOVE!! which was absolutely iconic.
FILM
Poor Things
My favourite of the year. This had everything I love: humour, wit, existentialism, eccentrism, absurdism, sex, amazing costumes, great colour-palettes (and Mark Ruffalo…nude…).
Past Lives
This one got under my skin. It got me thinking about Finland, Japan, my past selves, past loves, language, identity, shedding skin as an immigrant and carving a new self, new life. Ah, a masterpiece (also the film of the year that made me sob the hardest).
The Zone of Interest
Based on Martin Amis’s novel of the same name. We’re in Poland, 1943, in an idyllic house and garden of a German ruling-class family, built literally on the other side of the fences of Auschwitz. It’s the ordinary life depicted that is the most harrowing aspect of the film. Mica Levi’s score is as per usual amazing.
Theatre Camp
Watched this over the break and AH absolutely looooooved it! Funny, sweet, cozy, great cast, now get me to a theatre camp for adults please.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
I love Nan Goldin, I love Cookie Mueller, I love 1970s-80s East Village New York. That said, this documentary follows Nan’s and her friends path from addiction to activism, and her determination to take down the Sackler family who is largely responsible for the current state of the opioid crisis in America.
How to Have Sex
Molly Manning-Walkers’s feature debut is exhilarating, raw, painful, hopeful.
and finally of course…Barbie!
I was sceptical but in the end loved the whole shebang. I love Greta, I love Margo, I love Ryan, I love Kate McKinnon’s weird Barbie, I love pink, I loved all the gazillion British cameos (obsessed that Jamie Demetriou and Rob Brydon are in the Barbie film). Those are my two cents to the discourse.
COMEDY / PERFORMANCE / THEATRE
My Neighbour Totoro
Worth all the hype. The puppets are amazing and the live music, and I of course bawled my eyes out. Fun fact: I know Niino Furuhata who plays Kanta from Tokyo, where we used to fold shirts together at American Apparel. Life truly comes around in strange circles sometimes!
Julia Masli - ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
I stayed up till 3 am in Edinburgh AND caught covid from this show, but it was worth it. Julia Masli is my favourite Estonian clown. In this show, she solves the audience’s problems, for example in the show I attended one man’s problem was his balding head and another’s the fact he hadn’t had a haircut in a while, so Julia cut the man’s hair and sellotaped it on the first man’s bald patch. Also issues solved were: having no money, fear of rejection. If you’re in London you NEED to catch the show this month at Soho Theatre.
Stamptown
Stamptown is a very fun, very chaotic (and often quite raunchy) late night variety show you can catch in London/NYC/LA/Edinburgh/Australia. Hosted by Zack Zucker (and often co-hosted by Spanish fuckboi Josh Glanc who is a devoted reader of this newsletter) expect to see clowning, stand-up, cabaret, circus. London shows this month at Soho Theatre.
Viggo Venn on Britain’s Got Talent
A (Scandi!!) clown winning BGT in 2023 was simply iconic. If you want to laugh watch this compilation of his performances.
Courtney Pauroso - Vanessa 5000
When a sex robot develops a consciousness.
The Effect
Succession writer Lucy Prebble’s 2012 play about love in a drug trial was restaged this year at the National and I didn’t think “how long do we have left” once, which is a great sign for a play. Paapa Essiedu especially was amazing in it.
Strategic Love Play
My friend Miriam Battye’s (another Succession writer alumni) play about our generation’s futile attempts to connect set on a first date was another theatre highlight.
BOOKS
The Notebook, The Proof, The Third Lie (trilogy) by Ágota Kristóf
Change by Édouard Louis
Arrangements in Blue: Notes on Loving and Living Alone by Amy Key
Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe
I’m Glad My Mom Died - Jennette McCurdy
Details by Ia Genberg
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Girl, woman, other by Bernardine Evaristo
Punainen erokirja & Vastavalo by Pirkko Saisio
Punainen planeetta by Joonatan Tola
Sitten menin kotiin by Karin Smirnoff
Pölyn ylistys by Silvia Hosseini
LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2024
TV: Expats, True Detective: Night Country, Palm Royale, The Sympathizer, plus four shows coming from the company I work at - Eric, Kaos, Black Doves and Passenger
Film: American Fiction, The Iron Claw, All of Us Strangers, Paddington 3, Monster, Mickey 17, Love Lies Bleeding
Books: Like Love by Maggie Nelson, Come and Get It by Kiley Reid, The Vulnerables by Sigrid Nunez, Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hanna, The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley, Wellness by Nathan Hill, Aednan by Linnea Axelsson, Revolutionary Acts: Black Gay Men in Britain by Jason Okundaye
Comedy/performance/theatre: Amazing Banana Brothers (going to see this tonight in fact), Spirited Away, Natalie Palamides WIP
THAT’S IT. Probably forgot tons.