Daily Archives: January 25, 2020

Emojiland was a stand-out at the 2018 New York Musical Festival and perhaps the last production to be able to leverage that platform. On a roster of underwhelming projects that ranged from overinflated to overly earnest, Emojiland had a gimmicky concept that wrapped its arms around some big ideas with surprising success: simulation theory, xenophobia, and the corruption of monarchical power among them (cue Lesli Margherita in a princess crown dancing with the egomaniacal power of a birthday girl on My Super Sweet 16).

Now in a full production directed by Thomas Caruso at the Duke on 42nd Street, Emojiland still has all of those assets to its credit not to mention a crystal-clear spirit of good intentions and optimism (or at least anti-nihilism). It all just feels a little less remarkable in its new quarters, even with its substantially enhanced production value (scenic designer David Goldstein has built a towering pixelated paradise while costume designer Vanessa Leuck charmingly reimagines a throng of emoji lewks).

There are a lot of moving pieces in the plot. But to make a too-long story shorter, Emojiland is set in the sunshiny innards of an iPhone on the eve of an update, which will bring new emoji to town and perhaps add nuanced layers of feeling to the existing ones at least that's what the perpetually happy Smize (the musical's coauthor Laura Schein) is hoping for. What the update ends up bringing Smize is a new friend by the name of Nerd Face (George Abud), a scientist of sorts who values truth and curiosity, and is the polar opposite of Smize's bullish cool-guy boyfriend, Sunny (Jacob Dickey).

On the regal side of Emojiland, the update creates a Prince (Josh Lamon) to join Princess (Margherita) in her castle a development Princess is not too keen on. Prince and Princess quickly become besties, but they're not willing to press their luck with another upgrade that might bring a King or Queen into the fold. So with some advisement from Man in Business Suit Levitating (Max Crumm bringing subtle capitalist villainy), Prince and Princess order the construction of a firewall, pedaling fear of invading emoji. Meanwhile, a spurned Nerd Face befriends resident outcast Skull (Lucas Steele, giving dark Jud Fry energy in an operatic tenor), which leads him to agree to assist Skull incommitting suicide.

It's a pretty heavy turn of events, but in the innocuous world of emoji, even the most disturbing things can stay in the realm of thought experiment: Does life have inherent value? Is it rational to fear the outsider? Can someone's insides be at odds with their outsides? Schein and her coauthor Keith Harrison capitalize on that strength, even as the journey through all of these plot points becomes a bit of a slog.

Schein and Harrison break it up with pleasant, pop-inspired songs, each with a different degree of re-listen value. Smize's character song "Sad on the Inside," for example, isn't going to make anyone's list of favorite showtunes, whereas Police Officer's Act 2 ballad "A Thousand More Words" is a total showstopper in the extraordinary hands of Felicia Boswell. And I thought no one could top Natalie Weiss's Act 1 solo "Stand For" as Police Officer's romantic partner Construction Worker.

I'm inclined to say that Boswell and Weiss are the musical's power couple, but Emojiland, of all things, has stiff competition in that category: Lamon and Margherita (who death-drops in her big solo "Princess Is a Bitch") are an endless delight to us and each other in their royal partnership; and as Nerd Face, Abud partners beautifully with both Skull and Smize, bringing incredible dimension to a character with one personality trait. Emojiland in a vacuum ranges from solid to underwhelming, but performance-wise, this production is an embarrassment of riches (I mean, who doesn't want to see Ann Harada perform a musical number as a Pile of Poo?).

Sure, by the time Nerd Face unearths his heroic side to save Emojiland from a permeating virus, you're a little fatigued from the techy metaphors and gamified atmosphere as if you've stared too long at the screen of your iPhone. But to Emojiland's great credit, there aren't many other off-Broadway musicals with a whole host of performances that can be described by the "Shocked Face With Exploding Head" emoji.

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Emojiland Asks, Is It Really So Great to Be Alive? - TheaterMania.com

With impeachment framed as an exercise in moral nihilism, Republicans and Democrats have now entered the field of battle over witnesses, with each side bafflingly defending the political interests of the other. House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiCNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group On The Money Presented by Wells Fargo Social Security emerges as flash point in Biden-Sanders fight | Dems urge Supreme Court to save consumer agency | Trump to sign USMCA next week Veronica Escobar to give Spanish-language response to Trump State of the Union address MORE withheld delivery of the impeachment articles in an effort to secure witnesses during the Senate trial, including former White House national security adviser John Bolton. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellCNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group Democrats feel political momentum swinging to them on impeachment Impeachment throws curveball in Iowa to sidelined senators MORE sees absolutely no need for new witnesses. He said, This is a political process. There is not anything judicial about it.

However, with acquittal certain, the president actually needs witnesses to testify. How else can he justify his tweets of total exoneration, as he did after the special counsel investigation? Witnesses would give his acquittal the patina of legitimacy. Without any witnesses, the president and Senate Republicans up for reelection become vulnerable to claims of a sham trial or, even far worse, an orchestrated coverup rooted in a fear of the truth.

The absence of witnesses during the impeachment trial of Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump says his advice to impeachment defense team is 'just be honest' Trump expands tariffs on steel and aluminum imports CNN's Axelrod says impeachment didn't come up until 80 minutes into focus group MORE would only draw unwanted attention to this particular lack of openness. One could almost hear the chants of what is he hiding? reverberating loudly from the steel rafters at the Democratic National Convention this summer. Denying witnesses is also off brand for the president himself, as his primary defense for nearly all of his transgressions in office has been transparency. Trump brazenly obstructed justice in full view of the public during the special counsel investigation and openly called on a foreign power to investigate his domestic political rivals from the White House.

With the outcome not in doubt, the wisest move by the president would be to promote witness testimony, not of Hunter Biden, but of those who participated in carrying out his perfect call directive precisely because of its damning nature. Just get everything out. No more drips and drabs of tantalizing details to extend the Ukraine story closer to the election. By contrast, although Democrats desperately claim that they need witness testimony from those involved, such as Bolton and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, their testimony will not result in conviction.

Taking the effects of past testimony as prelude, further testimony will not sway the hearts and minds of independents, much less the Trump base. But it could make Democrats seem ineffective, in the way that repeated failures to defeat ObamaCare did to Republicans such as Eric Cantor and John Boehner. Extending the impeachment process could also hamper the several Senate Democrats vying to be the party nominee this year.

In an actual court of law, it takes but one witness to establish a fact if the jury finds that witness credible. So five witnesses are no more compelling or persuasive than one. If Republicans could buy the time to drag out the impeachment trial into the Democratic primary season by interviewing redundant witnesses, why would they not do so? If Democrats could end the trial with questions left unanswered and hanging over the reelection campaign of the president, why would Republicans acquiesce to that?

The facts are known. The truth is obvious. Trump personally orchestrated the pressure campaign against the newly elected president of Ukraine to secure an investigation of his political rival in the election. That pressure campaign included the quid quo pro in the form of a prized White House visit and holding up nearly $400 million in vital American military aid that Congress had already appropriated and that the president had approved.

However, with Senate Republicans grotesquely eager to simply acquit the president, the strategy of Pelosi holding out for witnesses in the trial was politically counterproductive, even if it was morally, ethically, and legally correct. Without witnesses, Trump will have to play defense on the issue of impeachment and Ukraine in 2020, especially if one assumes more and more information will find its way into public view in the coming months.

With witnesses in the trial, the claims of exoneration by the president will find little credible resistance in the public. So with a nihilistic tip of the hat to the political spectacle that impeachment has turned into, but given the damning state of the record to date, on the question of witnesses, here is to hoping McConnell is successful in orchestrating a Senate whitewash.

Chris Gagin is an attorney and adviser to Republicans for the Rule of Law.

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Why Senate Republicans should eagerly call witnesses to testify | TheHill - The Hill

EDITOR, The Tribune.

The Bahamian champion and liberal advocate of womens reproductive healthcare and Nassau Tribune columnist, Alicia Wallace, by calling for the decriminalisation of abortion, reminds the writer of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger.

According to Jewish conservative writer Arthur Goldberg, Sanger openly spoke of her desire to exterminate the Negro population via abortion.

Based on this troubling statement, it would appear that racism was the motivating factor in Planned Parenthoods attempts at population control within the African American community a phenomenon which has been called institutionalised racism by pro-life activists.

This can explain why 62 percent of Planned Parenthood abortion mills are within walking distance of African American neighbourhoods.

With the availability of such facilities in the US, nearly half of all pregnancies among black women end in abortion, compared to only 16 percent among white women, according to the Centres for Disease Control.

In New York, for every 1,000 live births there are 1,180 abortions among black women. And according to the liberal think tank the Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than five times as likely as white women to have an abortion.

Small wonder American clergyman Walter Hoye opined that African Americans will be an endangered species if this disturbing trend continues.

With an astounding 62 percent of African Americans supporting legal abortion, that racial demographic will continue playing the role of ethnic minority in the US in the foreseeable future.

As with our American counterparts, the issue of ethnicity will undoubtedly be a factor in The Bahamas if abortion is ever given the green light by lawmakers. Moreover, with an average of 100 murders committed in The Bahamas each year, legalised abortion would only reinforce the perception that ours is a culture of death.

Hiding behind the subterfuges of reproductive healthcare and socioeconomics, Wallace and other pro-choice activists are attempting to undermine our traditional moral values handed down to us by the Judeo-Christian worldview that teaches us that infanticide is wrong, by lobbying for legalised abortion in The Bahamas.

As it relates to human sexuality among Bahamians, Wallace seems to be unwittingly calling for the implementation of Friedrich Nietzsches nihilism.

This dangerous and irresponsible mindset gave Americans the sex revolution, Hustler, Penthouse, AIDS, and other STDS a testament of the abject failure of the kind of sex education Wallace is clamoring for to be taught to Bahamians.

Nihilism has also led to the deconstruction of the nuclear family, most especially within the African American community, where only 37 percent of black women have ever been married.

In the event Wallace gets her wish and abortion is legalised in The Bahamas, with a population of only 400,000, the ratio of Bahamians to Haitians, be they legal or illegal, will experienced a precipitous decline.

To be sure, Haitian women will not be lining up at the abortion mills to terminate the lives of their babies. Such a phenomenon would inevitably lead to the radical altering of the Bahamian social fabric, much like what has occurred in Sweden due to its reckless, free-for-all immigration policy. It will bring about the Haitianisation of The Bahamas. As an evangelical Christian who believes in the intrinsic value of the life of unborn babies, I utterly reject Wallaces irresponsible calls for the legalisation of abortions for convenience.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport,

Grand Bahama

January 22, 2020.

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Abortion brings Haitianisation of The Bahamas - Bahamas Tribune

As 24 million acres of Australia burned in record bushfires between September and January, Australian teens turned to TikTok. Chlo Hayden, a 22-year-old motivational speaker and YouTuber based in Victoria, had barely used the video-sharing app, but her peers were flooding it with their frustration with Prime Minister Scott Morrisons mishandling of the crisis and footage of the dense smoke as a way of raising awareness among a largely ignorant public.

Chlos video was a perfect encapsulation of the TikTok sensibility: She used a popular meme format to show the hypocrisy of the lack of media attention by comparing it to the immediate outpouring of financial support after the Notre Dame fire. It was equal parts funny and incisive, and ended up being viewed nearly 300,000 times.

I love that through the use of short comedy sketches, teens are getting a bigger point across than most lengthy, informative articles posted by some old bloke who we cant relate to in the slightest, she explains. Its both parts a coping mechanism and an incredible way to speak our minds where were all equal, and I genuinely dont think theres any other platform that you can do that in a similar way.

TikTok has, in its barely year and a half of existing, become the most effective way for a random person to spread a message to the widest possible audience in the shortest amount of time. It takes the best of Twitter (brevity, as videos can be a maximum of 60 seconds but most are much shorter) and YouTube (the ability to see someones face as theyre speaking to you) and adds the ability to go viral with virtually zero followers.

That the app is populated largely by teens also means that so much of what happens on it participates in a brand of ironic internet comedy that complicates the idea of serious news-sharing. TikTok videos on geopolitical events, from the Australian fires to the vague threat of World War III, can be viewed variously as awareness-spreading of underreported stories, coping mechanisms, exercises in nihilism, or goofy videos that no one should spend too much time analyzing.

Though its always tried to position itself as a joyful space for creating and viewing silly and inspiring content, TikTok has unintentionally become one of the best means of disseminating ideas on the internet. Its a power thats being used for better or for worse, and largely by minors.

TikTok was never supposed to be political. The app was expressly designed to discourage news-sharing its home feed is non-chronological, and there are no visible timestamps for when a video is posted, making it nearly impossible to understand what happened when. Political advertisements are not allowed, and until recently, TikTok had vague content guidelines that reportedly encouraged moderators to censor content sensitive to local governments. Its slogan is Make your day, presumably by distracting you from *gestures widely at everything*.

TikTok was never supposed to be political, but of course it was always going to be. During 2019s widespread climate strikes, TikTokers used jokes about e-girls to spread awareness about e-missions. When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was revealed to have worn brownface, TikTok had fun brutally roasting him. In November, a New Jersey teen posted a viral TikTok discussing the Chinese mass internment of Muslims (and was subsequently locked out of her account). Another teen used the app to organize a strike in solidarity with her school districts teachers. When adults on TikTok mocked teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, there was a flood of comments with just one phrase, sparking one of the years biggest memes: ok boomer. US Democratic presidential candidates are on TikTok. Police officers, soldiers, and the Israel Defense Forces are on TikTok. Nazis and terrorists are, too.

Most importantly, millions of regular people are on TikTok, all of whom have at least some awareness of what happens in the world and who probably have opinions about it. In the first week of 2020, just a few days after memes about new year new me and leaving negativity in 2019 proliferated on the internet, the world seemed to explode: President Trump ordered the assassination of Quassem Soleimani, pushing the US and Iran to the brink of war. Puerto Rico was hit by a series of massive earthquakes, cutting off power for nearly a million people and access to clean water for hundreds of thousands. Bushfires, worsened by climate change, continued to rage across Australia, killing at least 28 people and an estimated 1 billion animals and destroying 2,000 homes. The most powerful man in the world faced an impeachment trial.

World War III seemed imminent, but on TikTok it was already raging. Me in the trenches doing my 10-step Korean skincare routine, read the caption on one video by 19-year-old Australian student Isaac Tuazon. Gays when we get drafted into WW3, read another in a video of TikToker Sir Carter voguing with Nerf guns. Me after getting my first kill in WW3, wrote one TikToker while doing a Fortnite dance.

I just thought the idea of bringing my entire skin care routine with me to the battlefield would be a little extra and would earn a few laughs, Tuazon tells me about his K-beauty WW3 TikTok. He likes the app because it gives him a chance to see average kids, no matter their country of origin, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, having fun and laughing together.

Its the same for Juana Isabelle Sarenas, an 18-year-old student in Hong Kong who recently posted a video about Cabin 6, the theoretical cabin where all the cool TikTok kids will end up when Trump is impeached and President Mike Pence sends queer teens to conversion-therapy summer camp.

The LGBT community there is huge, Sarenas says of TikTok. The jokes dont erase the tragic events if anything, they use the memes to bring light to them in a humorous way. I learned more about concentration camps and other horrifying current events from TikTok than I had any other platform.

Cabin 6 memes, in general, are a pretty joyous way to react to the reality that the US vice president once advocated for allocating federal dollars to conversion therapy groups instead of HIV/AIDS patients. As many of the memes reference, conservative boomers sending a bunch of queer kids to a summer camp together seems like a great way to encourage the very sexuality those people find so repugnant. We all know that if [Pence] tried to force people to go to camps, it would never be passed as a law, one 16-year-old told Mel Magazine. I just find it funny to joke about that like summer camp with the fellow gays.

Like the rest of the internet, as much as TikTok is a place for blas nihilism kids self-deprecating about how ugly they are, or begging for Harry Styles to run them over its also proved to be a great way of getting other people to listen. On TikTok, users dont have to follow anyone to see videos the app thinks they might like. As on Reddit, information can come from anywhere, as long as enough people favorite it. Thats how Gem Nwanne, a 24-year-old grad student, data analyst, and activist in New York, went viral after posting a video about the citys crackdown on subway fare evasion using the same meme format as Chlos.

Nwanne was used to the kind of discourse that takes place in activist and academic circles on Twitter and Instagram, with long threads and jargon-y paragraphs. Its a little difficult to engage on Twitter because if you ask the wrong question to the wrong person ... there will be a pile-on. Youll get kicked the shit kicked out of you, Nwanne says with a laugh. But with a platform like TikTok, its way more accessible. Im dancing. Its a joke. Its a lot easier to teach or to spread an idea when people are laughing.

The subway fare video helped Nwanne gain 10,000 followers in a month on TikTok, where they continue to post videos about race, queer identity, capitalism, and leftist politics. I think TikTok as a tool for education can be so revolutionary, and I would really love to see more people on my side of the political spectrum using it, moving away from these academic Twitter threads. Lets meet the people where they are.

Its much easier to see the humanity of someone whose ideas youre hearing when you can actually see them. The dominant TikTok aesthetic is a person in their own home, alone, speaking to the camera without knowing who will end up seeing their face on their screen. Its like YouTube one of the most effective platforms for sharing ideas, for better or for worse but TikToks take even less effort to produce.

Conversations are difficult to have on Twitter or Instagram because of how reactive everybody is on those apps, Nwanne says. Comments on a video about the Australian fires were like, folks asking questions and people answering them. On Twitter or Instagram theyd be like, How dare you ask the question? The communitys a lot chiller, and I do think its because theyre younger, and so they dont know to be pretentious douchebags yet.

I always compare TikTok to all of the rhymes and hand games that we played in middle school, says Sophie Dickinson, an associate editor at Know Your Meme who covers TikTok. The bushfires, other things that are happening now, its all the same jokes over and over and over again. It has to do with whatever the popular opinion is. It could be dangerous, but its also nice for kids to be coming together over something that might be very difficult and challenging to wrap their heads around.

It would be easy to make TikTok out to be a utopian Gen Z playground, where authenticity sells and love wins and the rest is mostly just dancing, but thats not the whole story. Nwanne, for instance, doesnt read their comments because they say the platform is often quite conservative like Facebook-lite. The #impeachment hashtag on TikTok seems to have nearly as many earnest Trump supporters as it does people poking fun at the president using a popular Camila Cabello song.

TikTok has some of the same political pitfalls as YouTube ironic memes and jokes can seduce people into believing harmful ideologies and its mysterious algorithm makes it such that the TikTok I see, the one with hilarious and well-meaning teens goofing off in their bedrooms, is not the same one that someone else sees. That certain songs and sounds, dances, and memes go hugely viral, and fast, also ends up with many people using those memes to spread false or extremist information. Nurse Holly, a nurse on TikTok with nearly 2 million followers, recently received major backlash when she used a popular song and video format to post a video that said the best way to prevent STDs was by waiting for sex until marriage. Even mostly harmless jokes about getting drafted for WW3 led at least some college kids to briefly panic over the idea of being forced to join the Army, even though the US hasnt had a draft since 1973.

Bad stuff has been happening in the world forever, and the internet has always been full of very funny and very sad people to make jokes out of it. TikTok is now a crucial part of that machine, one that can set the discourse in practically zero time. Whatever comes of it, Nwanne knows one thing is certain: Were gonna set some shit on fire on TikTok.

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TikTok memes like WW3, impeachment, and Australian fires prove the platform is political - Vox.com

If ever there were a recipe for the kind of audacity needed to bring some of H.P. Lovecrafts more challenging stories to life on film, it would include a director like Richard Stanley, an actor like Nicolas Cage, and the studio that brought us Mandy last year.Twenty-three years removed from his last directorial outing, which famously ended after just three days, Stanley makes a triumphant return behind the camera with Color Out of Space. Lovecraft fans can rest assured that this is one of the best direct adaptations of the weird fiction writers seminal works since Re-Animator.

COLOR OUT OF SPACE (3/5 stars)Directed by:Richard StanleyWritten by: Richard Stanley, Scarlett Amaris, and story by H.P. LovecraftStarring: Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot KnightRunning time: 111 min

The film makes a few major changes to the short story, namely bringing it into the present day and telling the story from the perspective of the family rather than as a second-hand account of events. These changes succeed in making the story more immediate and dont sacrifice any of the spirit of the source material.

Thie story marinates in the cosmic nihilism one would expect from Lovecraft. The Gardner family, headed by the super dorky Nathan Gardner (Cage), has an idyllic life together, until one day a meteorite strikes their farmland and begins poisoning everything. Animals, insects, plant life it all starts giving off an eerie pink glow. Its like cosmic bowling!

Luck has it that a very intelligent hydrologist happens to be surveying the Gardners land around this time because of a city-proposed new reservoir, and he discovers that the water contains contaminants. Theres just poison all over this damn place now, and for some reason this family ignores the red flags long enough to descend into the kind of madness normally reserved for mountains.

Madness and Nic Cage go together, so theres no shortage of instant classic outbursts from him , but the rest of the cast perceivably attempts to match that energy. While they dont quite ever get there, and who could blame them, they make a commendable effort. They do just enough to sell the family drama and add some absurd levity so that we can enjoy what we really came here to see. The realized vision of an unimaginable terror awaits.

The central horror comes from the source of the spreading mutagen poison, which is an indescribable, incomprehensible hue that doesnt register on the known color spectrum. How the hell do you film that? Stanleys answer is mostly to use magenta and morphing neon, which are en vogue right now with many cinematographers, but it works.

While some of the CGI Special effects leave a little to be desired in spots, they build to an ethereal atmospheric effect not unlike what we saw in Annihilation. The practical effects pick up the slack on grotesquerie and give the film the kind of verve thats lacking in a lot of modern horror films. As a result, a pack of four alpacas and an unspeakable familial monstrosity are the real stars of this movie.

Lovecrafts fingerprints are all over horror classics that were not direct adaptations of his work, like Alien and The Thing, which is why its so exciting when we get a film like Color Out Of Space that comes from a place of deep reverence and understands what the audience wants from cosmic horror.

At a Q&A for an LA premiere of the film, Stanley clarified that Color Out of Space is the intended beginning of a Lovecraft film adaptation trilogy, with the next script hes working on drawing from The Dunwich Horror. One can hope he gets to follow through on that vision.

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Color Out Of Space Movie Review - Book and Film Globe

Joe Pera Talks With You is unlike anything else on Adult Swim. Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block is known for the maximalist absurdity of Tim & Eric; The Eric Andre Show and its demented, ranch-obsessed host ; Rick & Morty's animated nihilism; and the bizarre and surprisingly violent short Too Many Cooks. But it's now also home to a show where comedian Joe Pera plays a fictionalized version of himself, a "soft-handed choir teacher" who lives in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and, though in his thirties, boasts the unhurried mannerisms of a senior citizen. As it approaches the end of its masterful 14-episode second season, the show has become an essential salve against cynicism: It's relaxing and gentle TV that revels more in its meditative beauty than its eccentric comedy.

While the shock-value fanfare typical of Adult Swim has its own inherent comedic value, there's a warmth radiating throughout Joe Pera Talks With You that feels equally, if not more, needed in 2020. This is doubly true given Pera's sincere commitment to his character. (The fictional) Pera's disarmingly earnest in everything he does, from his teaching jobwhere he rewards students with green applesto his trip to the Friday fish fry with his Nana. Each 12-minute episode of the series finds Pera musing on one of the smaller things in life, like taking a hike, going to the grocery store, or waiting for someone at the beauty salon. With its ethereal soundtrack; Pera's calming, grandfatherly voice; and its surprisingly gorgeous cinematography, the show feels like a distant and often funny cousin to Bob Rossor a millennial version of Mr. Rogers.

Where many comedies lean on vulgarity and edginess, Pera finds his beat in everyday gratitude and basking in the mundane, to surprisingly amusing effect. In this season's first episode, Pera decides to create a bean arch in his garden so that when the vines are fully grown, they meet at the crown of the structure. As he explains to the audience the many pros of raising your own beans, he looks up at the arch and says, Imagine that not having to bend over to pick a bean, a simple observation so off-the-cuff and innocent that it's shockingly funny. It's unlikely that most of the show's target audiencetwenty- and thirtysomethingshave spent much time thinking about the best way to pick a bean with such sincerity, yet here they are, taking a moment to consider it. With too much of modern day-to-day life spent being chronically online, overstimulated, and filled with anxiety, the good-natured humor in Joe Pera Talks With You provides a brief but deserved respite. Hey, why aren't we growing bean arches?

On a lesser show, Pera's character would be treated like a punchline: an oafish, painfully Midwestern rube whose wholesomeness is sneered at. Instead, Joe Pera Talks With You and its world actively root for him. One stellar episode from 2018's first season, "Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements," deals in the joy of discovering a song for the first timein this case, it's "Baba O'Riley" by The Who, a track so ubiquitous his ignorance of it is both hilarious and beguiling. In a sleepless daze from spending the previous night calling into every local radio station to play the song (he doesn't think to Google it himself), Pera asks the congregation if they've heard of The Who. It's not just played for laughs; in fact, at the end of the episode the churchgoers join Pera on a sing-a-along of the iconic classic track and it's surprisingly moving.

Though he's awkward and doesn't quite fit in during most social interactions, it's clear the other characters genuinely like being around Pera. There's a small-town joy in seeing him interact with his community even though it's rarely seamlessan episode where the straightlaced Pera is a last-minute invite to a boozy bachelor party is a particularly funny example. But his relationships with his neighbors the Melskis, his elderly best friend Gene, and his coworkers are especially affecting, especially when he navigates his newfound romance with his girlfriend Sarah (Jo Firestone). Just as Pera's clear passion for each episode's topic of the week is infectious, his enthusiasm for life's ostensibly ordinary things rubs off on those closest to him. It's this refreshing kindness that makes Pera so easy to cheer on. The genuine, honest, and full-hearted life his character lives in rural Michigan isn't treated with scorn; instead, it's aspirational.

It's easy to get caught up and overwhelmed by the fast-paced and demanding nature of just being alive in 2020. But even when things get hard, Joe Pera Talks With You is there to remind us to take a step back and appreciate the smaller things that make up our days. Pera's thoughtfulness is the series' emotional centerpiece, and when true obstacles are thrown his way as the second season progresses, it's heartrending, even devastating. But no matter what, he endures, leans on those closest to him, and remembers to take stock on the simple things that bring him joyto Pera, it truly is a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

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Joe Pera Talks With You Is the Best Thing Adult Swim Has Ever Done - VICE

Having opened late last year with Dave Malloy's gorgeous but esoteric supernatural song cycle Ghost Quartet, Soho's tiny theatrical jewel box, the Boulevard, continues its' policy of defiantly left-field programming with this UK premiere of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy's challenging talk-piece.

There are shades of Beckett and Mamet in the male-focussed nihilism and austerity of this bleak script, apparently set in a rundown New York tenement apartment immediately after a black ex-convict has stopped a white college professor from leaping to his death in front of a subway train. I say "apparently" because, as the play progresses, it starts to possibly look as though the suicide did in fact go to plan and we are eavesdropping on a conversation in some sort of purgatorial anteroom. McCarthy's opaque text first seen in Chicago in 2006 and subsequently turned into a film with Samuel L Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones remains tantalisingly ambiguous on this and several other points.

The characters are named simply 'Black' and 'White' which proves less of a racial statement and more of an indication of their opposing standpoints on the "Big Stuff" such as human suffering, whether suicide is a valid response to life's difficulties, and the relevance and existence of God. Much of it is very interesting and one is left in little doubt as to where the author's allegiances lie (and it's not with Gary Beadle's devout, watchfully chirpy Black).

"The one thing I won't give up is giving up" says the sardonic White (Jasper Britton, painfully convincing) in one of a few comic moments, however bitter, that leaven the existential gloom. The lengthy anecdotes and monologues as each character propounds his viewpoint are beautifully written, but collectively have a slightly deadening effect, as though one should be reading them rather than listening to them in a theatre, despite the technical brilliance of these fine actors. The lack of true drama makes the play feel rather longer than its 95 minutes.

Terry Johnson's production - from Tim Shortall's atmospherically grimy set to the accomplished lighting and sound designs by Ben Ormerod and John Leonard respectively is pretty much flawless however. Plus it is hard to imagine another pair of actors inhabiting Black and White with as much skill and commitment as Beadle and Britton. They precisely capture the rhythms of McCarthy's spiky prose and the middle ground it occupies between naturalism and poetically heightened.

Thought-provoking and technically impressive, but frustratingly elliptical as a piece of drama, this feels like an evening that is more to admire than truly engage with. "I yearn for the darkness" says White at one point...by the end of The Sunset Limited, I was starting to feel the same way. See it for the acting.

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Review: The Sunset Limited (Boulevard Theatre) - WhatsOnStage.com

CultureTVThere's also Star Trek: Picard, Bring Back the Bush on Channel 4 and a documentary following Nigel Farage's Brexit campaign

Friday, 24th January 2020, 7:00 am

Star Trek: Picard

From Friday 24 January, Amazon Prime

i's TV newsletter: what you should watch next

The Goop Lab

From Friday 24 January, Netflix

Providing yet more evidence that actress-turned-lifestyle guru Gwyneth Paltrow is in on the Goop joke, this six-part documentary about the wellness brands research group is a rare insight into the controversial company. Taking on everything from contacting the dead to recalibrating their biological age, Paltrows troupe of guinea pigs are up for anything, making for a bizarre, fascinating show.

Keeler, Profumo, Ward and Me

Sunday 26 January, 10pm, BBC Two

As The Trial of Christine Keeler comes to an end, ex-journalist Tom Mangold who reported first-hand on the Profumo affair in 1963 presents this documentary on the scandal. Featuring previously unheard interview recordings with Keeler, the film provides evidence that she was pressured into giving evidence against Dr Stephen Ward, who introduced the young girl to thepolitician.

Bring Back The Bush: Where Did Our Pubic Hair Go?

Monday 27 January, 10pm, Channel 4

Chidera Eggerue, aka Twitters @theslumflower, presents this investigation into Britains lack of pubic hair. Eggerue herself takes on the shame often associated with having hair down there by growing out her own pubes and presenting them as part of a public exhibition all in the name of self-love, of course.

The Windermere Children

Monday 27 January, 9pm, BBC Two

A one-off drama about the group of children who arrived at Windermeres Calgarth Estate in the Lake District after surviving the Holocaust. Based on first-person testimonies from Jewish people who made a new life in the UK after the Second World War, it is a heart-breaking but ultimately hopeful watch as the children rebuild a family together.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

Tuesday 28 January 9pm, Sky Comedy

The Sky channel launching on Monday brings Larry Davids miserable alter ego to the UK only a couple of weeks after it premiered in America. In the first episode, Larry begins 2020 by creating a new rival for himself Mocha Joe, who owns a coffee shop where the coffee is too cold and the scones are too soft. Nihilism at its most entertaining.

Young, Sikh and Proud

Tuesday 28 January, 10.35pm, BBC One

Jagraj Singh is often credited as the most popular Sikh leader in modern Britain, attracting young people to return to their faith before he died in 2017. This documentary follows his brother, the journalist Sunny Hundal, in his attempt to understand the allure of Singhs Sikhism and examine why the pair fell out over their different interpretations of the same religion.

Next In Fashion

From Wednesday 29 January, Netflix

Queer Eyes Tan France and model Alexa Chung present Netflixs first fashion competition. Competing for the chance to have their designs sold on luxury site Net-a-Porter and a cash prize of $250,000 (190,000), 10 designers from around the world take on various sartorial challenges. Guest judges include the designers Tommy Hilfiger and Christopher Kane, and the model Adriana Lima.

Farage: The Man Who Made Brexit

Wednesday 29 January, 9pm, Channel 4

Christian Trumble, the director who brought us Carry on Brussels, goes behind the scenes of Nigel Farages 2019 European election triumph, in which his Brexit Party won more votes than the Conservatives and Labour combined. In the months following, the controversial politician attempts to get soon-to-be PM Boris Johnson on side a dream that ends with tales of bullying, threats and phone calls from Donald Trump.

Auschwitz Untold: In Colour

Wednesday 29 January, 10.30pm, More 4

Almost 75 years to the day since the liberation of Auschwitz, 16 Holocaust survivors tell their stories alongside newly restored and colourised archive footage of the genocide. Among the contributors are a Roma resistance fighter and a Jewish artist, who tell their stories of survival with admirable bravery.

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The 10 best TV shows to watch this week, from The Goop Lab to Curb Your Enthusiasm season 10 - inews