Feed Editor (Unlicensed) 8 Oct 2007 15:52:49 +0000 Entertainment features from The National Student Magazine in the UK - The independent, free, national student magazine covering music, film, tv, web, theatre, art, literature, comedy and gaming. http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine Defender Newspapers http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss en-gb http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/navigation/mastheadmini.jpg http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine The National Student Magazine in the UK - The independent, free, national student entertainment monthly. As the Crimbly break approaches, Ian Phillips offers up a rough round-up of some of the telly treats and TV terrors that lie in wait during the festive season and into the new year... 5 Dec 2007 15:16:36 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/previews/dec_07.htm Rob Deering is a cheery fellow with a big happy face. He’s an award-winning stand-up comedian and has so far taken five solo shows to the Edinburgh Fringe - in fact that’s where I last saw him, hurrying past me with a big grin, carrying his guitar, which these days features prominently in his act... 5 Dec 2007 15:16:27 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/comedy/features/rob_deering.htm We find comedian Russell Howard in King’s Lynn, ten days into the 51 date national tour of his sell-out Edinburgh show - Adventures... 13 Nov 2007 18:25:47 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/comedy/russell_howard_interview2.htm Battles off-kilter aural algorithms have been the surprise hit of 2007. Tom Cassidy caught up with drummer John Stanier for a chat... 13 Nov 2007 18:24:10 GMT http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/battles.htm Kosminsky discusses his career to date, reveals why this was an intensely personal project, and outlines his concerns about the world his children are growing up in... 13 Nov 2007 18:23:26 GMT http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/britz_peter_kosminsky.htm Vorderman recalled her first day in the job, looked back at 25 years of numbers, letters and hilarity, and revealed what was in store for the Countdown: 25th Birthday Special... 13 Nov 2007 18:20:58 GMT http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/countdown_at_25.htm Whether you find his cartoons achingly funny or shockingly abhorrent - Dagsson’s drawings can be sure to provoke a reaction; upon the release of his second collection of cartoons in the UK - Is This Supposed To Be Funny? - Ian Phillips exclusively interrogated the Icelandic eruptor of fury... 13 Nov 2007 18:19:15 GMT http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/art/dagsson.htm Dressing as a high class escort for her role as Belle in Secret Diary of a Call Girl has helped Billie Piper realise a new found love of high heels and beautiful underwear... 13 Nov 2007 18:17:25 GMT http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/secret_diary_billie_piper.htm Misty’s Big Adventure are an enigma... waging war on this ‘bland age’ with new album Funny Times. Phil Dixon took tea with the band’s Grandmaster Gareth and Erotic Volvo, the nicest monster in pop... 13 Nov 2007 18:16:44 GMT http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/mistys_big_adventure.htm 14 years, 8 months & 6 days on from their seminal debut album Arrested Development talk exclusively to The National Student. It’s been twelve long years since we’ve heard anything from Arrested Development, one of the slew of important hip-hop outfits from the early nineties, who had more to talk about than weed, guns and biatches. Hip-hop’s done a lot of changing since then – and, some would say, not for the better. Phil Dixon caught up with them at Camden Town’s Jazz Café to see if these old skool stalwarts still have a place in a world of ringtone-made s**t-hop, or if they’re more important now than ever. 10 Oct 2007 16:24:10 GMT http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/arrested_development.htm Norman Lovett’s face is instantly recognizable to millions as Red Dwarf’s sardonic computer Holly... so having riotously chuckled all the way through his latest show it’s a joyously bizarre experience to be having a conversation with it! 8 Oct 2007 16:09:31 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/comedy/norman_lovett_interview.htm magazine had a brief chat with iconic protest-singer Country Joe McDonald before his apprearance at this years Wychwood Music Festival. The name Country Joe McDonald might not immediately ring a bell. Type the name into the search bar on Youtube and watch the first video on offer, what you will witness is one of the iconic moments of the sixties, if not of all time. Following his famous F-U-C-K chant (paid homage to, in amongst other things, the film Forest Gump) Joe stands alone on stage at Woodstock, guitar in hand and proceeds to lead a euphoric sing-along of his anti-war classic ‘I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag’. Lines such as ‘What are we fighting for? I don’t give damn, next stop Viet Nam. Got no time to wonder why, whoopee we’re all gonna die!’ ring just as true in today’s global climate as they did back then. 10 Oct 2007 16:21:55 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/country_joe.htm Success, texan cops, rumours, lies and Chris De Burgh... magazine spends some time with The Kooks 10 Oct 2007 16:27:11 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/the_kooks.htm The star of Radio 1’s The Milk Run and Radio 4’s Banter is fast becoming a TV panel show regular, he lives in Bristol and shares a flat with a couple of other comedians, including the warm-up man for Deal or No Deal. He recently had to drop out of the now traditional Comedians versus Stenhousemuir charity football match in Edinburgh after he sustained a back injury falling off his seat laughing at the Snakes on a Plane trailer. Last year he came 2nd in Zoo magazine’s list of ‘Britain’s Funniest Comics’, this year he was nominated for ‘Best Act’ in the if.commedies (formerly Perrier Awards) for his Edinburgh show Wandering and won the Chortle Award for ‘Best Compere’ - you can see him hosting the Edinburgh and Beyond show. He’s scared of people who can’t remember Thundercats and he can do a very highly regarded impression of Schnarf. He avidly devours Haribo. In the frenetic post-fringe haze, magazine sent him a few questions of varying quality, and like a lower-case trouper he returned some answers. 10 Oct 2007 16:34:29 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/comedy/russell_howard_interview.htm Forwards Not Backwards! Upwards Not Forwards, and Always Whirling, Whirling Towards Freedom! Leeds punk-funk upstarts ¡Forward, Russia! are doing it for themselves, taking the music industry by storm - all on their own terms. 10 Oct 2007 16:28:03 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/forward_russia.htm Death Proof is his fifth film and takes its cue from the exploitation or ‘grindhouse’ movies that played in shabby, low-rent American cinemas during the 70s, promising lurid thrills from sex and violence that, though advertised on the poster out front, almost never quite materialised. Set in Austin, Texas, home of long-time collaborator Robert Rodriguez, Death Proof centres on a down-at-heel actor, Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell), who stalks packs of pretty girls in his customised muscle car, with the express intention of following them and smashing them to a bloody pulp... 8 Oct 2007 16:06:34 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/film/features/death_proof_quentin_tarantino.htm Stuntwoman and star of Tarantino's 'Grindhouse' feature Death Proof, Zoe Bell, chatted exclusively to James Davies for The National Student Magazine. 8 Oct 2007 16:06:12 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/film/features/death_proof_zoe_bell.htm In Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof he plays Stuntman Mike, an apparently harmless out-of-work stunt actor whose hobby involves stalking pretty girls in his custom-built car and causing crashes that only he can survive... 8 Oct 2007 16:08:05 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/film/features/death_proof_kurt_russell.htm In Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof she plays Abernathy, a single mother and make-up artist working on a new Lindsay Lohan movie, who takes advantage of a break in shooting to hook up with some friends from the set and then go and meet an old friend at the airport, a stuntwoman named Zoë. 8 Oct 2007 16:08:47 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/film/features/death_proof_rosario_dawson.htm Just under 33 years ago the newborn Grylls child was given the nickname Bear at just a day old. Carrying such a moniker around could have gone two ways - either the child could rise to the challenge and become a big, brave, powerful and self-reliant outdoorsy-type, or they grow into a nine-stone stripling who jumps at their own shadow. See if you can guess which path Bear adopted. 10 Oct 2007 16:13:28 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/bear_grylls_born_survivor.htm The Teats kick off big style as Misty’s Big Adventure take the piss out of them in their new video for ‘Fashion Parade’. On hearing rumours of the next big band rivalry spat, I’m over to Birmingham like the proverbial journalist up a drainpipe. I’m told this could be bigger than Blur and Oasis, bigger than The Kooks and Razorlight, bigger even than Posh Spice / Another Level and Sophie Ellis Bextor… It could be huge! 10 Oct 2007 16:25:30 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/mistys_vs_theteats.htm Highlights, reviews and comment from the UK's top summer music festivals 8 Oct 2007 16:12:20 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/festivals/index.htm Like most aspiring actors, April Pearson has had to wait a long time for her big break. She'd been acting in the theatre for 14 years before she got her big break on TV, starring as 17-year-old Michelle in E4's new flagship drama Skins. Yet this is not another case of a thirtysomething being (mis-) cast as a teenager. Instead, the producers (the team behind Shameless) have been scrupulous about only casting teenagers in the lead roles. Teens playing teens: What a novelty! 8 Oct 2007 16:37:16 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/skins_april_pearson.htm Despite being a likeable, intelligent, and hip teenager, it's easy to imagine that Mike Bailey is one of the least popular people on his Performing Arts course. While other students will doubtless spend a lifetime waiting tables and waiting for their big break, Mike has managed to jump the queue so successfully that he's just landed one of the lead roles on a brand new drama series, Skins. Not only that, it's the first ever wholly original, standalone drama on E4. And it's made by Company Pictures, producers of the multi-award-winning drama Shameless. 10 Oct 2007 16:09:55 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/skins_mike_bailey.htm It’s an agonising choice we all must face during our university years - early morning lecture, or stay in your pyjamas and watch LK Today? Forget the mumsy reputation and gingham sofas. Rector of Dundee University, Lorraine Kelly is smart, determined and straight-talking, let’s face it; your mid-week hangover wouldn’t be the same without her. During the summer David Wright grabbed something comfy and chatted with the queen of daytime. 10 Oct 2007 16:31:47 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/celebrity/lorraine_kelly.htm Cheggers chatted to magazine about his latest online experiment Cheggers Bingo, and his impressive telly credentials. 10 Oct 2007 16:33:10 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/celebrity/cheggers.htm For all the right reasons, The Pipettes are an unusual outfit. A kind of salmon of pop music swimming against the flow that travels in the direction of boring, and oddly enough they’re doing that by investing in retro girl-band pop. 10 Oct 2007 16:26:21 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/the_pipettes.htm Highlights, features and reviews from the world's biggest arts festival... Edinburgh's Festival Fringe 2007 8 Oct 2007 16:35:51 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/fringe/index.htm Brakes are an angry band. A really, really angry punk band that tug on elements of blues, country, folk and soul. Intriguing, yes, but far from being from the unambiguous, controversy courting, Sex Pistolian school of punk rock, Brakes are carving out a politically incorrect, religion-damning, anti-war niche all of their own - a niche they had the chance to explore in what lead singer and guitarist Eamon calls the ‘do whatever you want to do, as long as it's good’ attitude that was knocking around Brighton at the time of their conception. 8 Oct 2007 16:05:16 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/brakes.htm The View are riding the NME Rock Tour around the country and they’re riding it hard. The band has built up a reputation for hell raising and, ironically, the band has been barred from the Bayview pub in Dundee from which they take their name. 8 Oct 2007 16:04:29 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/the_view.htm Producer of hit records by Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, uber-cool fashionista DJ, and maker of that Radiohead cover, Mark Ronson was in London to chat about his new album Versions. magazine’s Phil Dixon was there to listen....... 8 Oct 2007 16:03:28 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/mark_ronson.htm The last time Maximo Park spoke to The National Student, it was 2005, just before releasing indie-disco favourite ‘Apply Some Pressure’. Two years on, on the eve of their heavier second album, Our Earthly Pleasures, drummer Tom English tells magazine of their whirlwind success and how they’re not set on stopping any time soon. 8 Oct 2007 16:01:16 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/maximo_park.htm Ash have always been one of Britain’s best rock bands and since their chronologically confused debut album ‘1977’ was released in 1996 they have been at the forefront of the Brit-rock pack. Riding the initial ‘Britpop’ tag with a musical style spattered with power-pop, punk, grunge and hard rock they have constantly developed, winning hearts and minds, on the way to the top with a bevy of catchy and epic hits on a handful of Top 20 albums. 8 Oct 2007 16:00:39 +0000 http://national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/ash.htm Artist, sculptor, animator, photographer... The ever-expanding list of David Shrigley’s talents has seen him produce a highly memorable promo video for Blur’s Good Song and attract widespread attention for his work. The Glasgow based creative with an instantly recognisable cartoon style has a wicked take on life that embraces the bizarre. magazine did the Q’s while he did the A’s - we also got him to do a self portrait! 10 Oct 2007 16:35:33 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/art/art_shrigley.htm In an ideal world, anyone who ever buys a sign that says 'You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps' should be sent to live on a small, rocky outcrop in the mid-Atlantic with nothing but a bottle of water and some cheesy sticks. They are invariably about as mad and dangerous as a boiled egg. Nobody should be allowed to possess such a sign - except escapologist Jonathan Goodwin. In fact, Goodwin should be required by law to have the sign tattooed upon his forehead. Only his should say 'You actually do have to be mad to work here'. Or just 'Run away: I’m dangerous'. 10 Oct 2007 16:15:39 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/jonathan_goodwin.htm Not so long ago, the word magician brought to mind men in polyester tuxedos and ill-fitting toupees, accompanied by white rabbits, top hats, glamorous assistants hidden under a few sequins and several inches of make up, and the mystifyingly hilarious floppy magic wand. But, like an audience stooge in a flip-top box, such individuals have disappeared. In their stead is a new breed of magician; darker, more mysterious, gothic and challenging; and without the mother-in-law jokes. 10 Oct 2007 16:16:50 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/tv/features/barry_and_stuart.htm Equipped with a youthful and priceless vigour, good-natured GoodBooks are better known for concocting tunes in an insightful, intelligent manner. Having already released three well-received singles, the band are set to become a great success in time for the release of their fourth single 'Passchendaele' and indeed, their debut album 'Control' in July. I had the chance to chat with lead singer Max Cooke. 10 Oct 2007 16:18:11 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/good_books.htm Donny Tourette talks exclusively and drunkenly to The National Student... again! It's common knowledge that ol' Donny boy enjoys living on the edge, and he's not exactly shy about discussing it either: “Most amount of money I've spent on a night out? £1500” Cor blimey! Apparently rock 'n' roll has gone to his head and, as he declares, seeped into his ‘lung’. 10 Oct 2007 16:19:09 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/towers_of_london.htm Most groups brought together for a university project work tenuously at best. There’s the bossy one, the quiet Powerpoint whiz, the stoned guy who does nothing all semester yet gets the best mark - usually with shambolic results eked out last minute in the Student Union pub. Not so for Drive By Argument. Formed as part of their music course in October 2004 without knowing each other previously, the disparate five-piece straight away found the right mix of backgrounds, influences and styles, and realised they should chase something bigger than merely a passing grade. 10 Oct 2007 16:21:15 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/dba.htm Not to be confused with 1990’s dance act, Grace are in actual fact a ‘power indie pop’ five-piece hailing from London. I caught up with front man John Paul Jones (or JP as he likes to be known). 10 Oct 2007 16:23:33 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/grace.htm Radio 1 DJ and Sunday Best head-honcho Rob Da Bank chats about this year's Bestival - the line-up and other happenings at this summer's 'funniest festival' 10 Oct 2007 16:29:18 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/robdabank.htm The Cuban Brothers are a group of 'pumping, energetic' B-Boys who have been quietly sizzling in the underground for decades. They are now crashing into the mainstream with MTV and terrestrial TV shows and a new single and album 'A to Z', bringing their funk to the nation. magazine spoke to Miguel Mantovani, who replied in a thick Latin drawl, on the subject of how a man can love a woman, another man, or himself, and of his own immense passion for the ‘música’. 10 Oct 2007 16:30:43 +0000 http://www.national-student.co.uk/magazine/music/features/cuban_brothers.htm