What’s Hot 3/02/23
It’s an epic What’s Hot this week so let’s dive straight in!
Bye Bye to the Vagina Museum – for now, at least
You may think it odd to start a ‘hot’ with something that is about to close BUT we refuse to believe this is the end for this ground-breaking museum, so we are remaining committed to the cause. From glittery tampons to knitted vaginas, the Vagina Museum has taught over 40,000 members of the public about female health and combatted stigmas aplenty. The announcement of the Vagina Museum closing is such a shame. HOWEVER, all hope is not lost. The founders have said that they are looking for a snug new home to set up camp.
Florence Schechter founded the museum after discovering Iceland’s long-running Phallological Museum, which has a collection of more than 280 penises. Her aim for the museum was to ‘erase the stigma around the female body and gynaecological anatomy’. The museum, the world’s first physical institution dedicated to the female reproductive system, and its surrounding culture and politics.
Here’s hoping they finds a new home soon.
The first ever charity-shop department store in the UK
Calling all Vinted-lovers, the UK’s first ever charity shop department store in the UK has opened its doors for the public! The store, Charity Super.Mkt, is located in Brent Cross Shopping Centre and holds clothes from ten different UK charities, including the likes of Age UK, Cancer Research and Barnardo’s.
The idea was brought about by Wayne Hemingway, founder of the Red or Dead fashion brand, and Maria Chenoweth, the CEO of TRAID, who hope to challenge the stigmas around charity shopping and give charity retailers the recognition that they rightfully deserve.
As we know, there has been a huge push for second-hand and more sustainable clothes shopping lately, and current stats show that 65% of UK residents are wearing at least one second hand item of clothing a week! We love that but wouldn’t it be ace if it was even more?
And sadly, fast-fashion and the constant shopping for the newest, ‘trendy’ items currently produces over 20% of global waste, so any movement that encourages the recycling of clothes is a win in our books!
This revolutionary store however, will only be open for a month (until 27th February) so make sure to grab your bags for life (no plastic, obvs) and head over to the North London shopping centre to snatch up the best deals.
Weekend plans sorted!
We, and the rest of the UK, have very quickly become enthralled in the life of ‘our Catherine’ also known as Sergeant Catherine Cawood, and this weekend will see the epic series finale of Happy Valley on BBC. It’s becoming increasingly rare these days for a linear TV programme to take a hold like this across the country, creating water cooler moments come Monday morning in offices and discussed on Slacks everywhere.
There’s certainly no lack of good British drama at the moment but Happy Valley hits different, a lot of that is to do with Sarah Lancashire’s performance of the complex, straight talking Catherine bringing an emotional depth to a character with a very hard exterior and a devastating back story.
And of course there’s James Norton, Catherine’s arch nemesis and father to her grandson/reason her daughter died – the serial rapist and escaped criminal Tommy Lee Royce, whose good looks and surface level charm mask a to-the-bone evilness and is surely one of the most chilling characters on TV at the moment.
This is a spoiler-free zone but this weekend’s finale is sure to be huge. The cat-and-mouse chase between Catherine and Tommy will come to a head, and with the show wrapping up after this season, no one is safe. We are going to be bereft without it (although The Last of Us is already taking a place in our hearts so maybe we’re going to be ok).
Irish indie heartthrob continues to impress in A Streetcar Named Desire
Paul Mescal’s stage return is definitely the reason why the first run of A Streetcar Named Desire sold out instantly. Stanley Kowalski, the violent antagonist of Tennessee Williams’s classic (and this writer’s all-time favourite) is far from the sensitive Connell that Mescal portrayed in the adaptation of Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’. This is one of the most iconic theatre roles, most famously played by Marlon Brando on Broadway in the 1940s, and then in the film.
It’s the story of Blanche DuBois, played here by Patsy Ferran, who visits her estranged sister Stella (Anjana Vasan) and her husband Stanley in New Orleans. Very soon it becomes clear that everything is not as it seems, things start to unravel, and tensions build.
After its success at the Almeida Theatre, the production – which now boasts an Oscar nominee (and maybe even a winner!) – the production is moving to Phoenix Theatre in London’s West End for another six weeks. It sold out again within two hours, but thankfully two of our What’s Hotters have managed to snag tickets for one of the most exciting revivals of the last few months – so stay tuned for a review!
Beyon-cé WHAT?
The time has come… but only to those with extreme luck and solid internet connections.
After news broke earlier this week that Beyoncé (yes…Beyoncé herself!) will be embarking on her long-awaited Renaissance tour later this year with plenty of dates across Europe, fans have been chomping at the bit to secure a ticket to what will likely be the gig of the Summer. Honestly, imagine finally hearing Cuff It live?
However, plenty of fans have been left short of patience, and breath, after ticket sites struggled yet again to handle the volume of fans logging on to secure their seats… as if superstar concerts are all of a sudden popular now? Fans took to social media to vent frustrations as it seemed buying a concert ticket had quickly become some form of obscure internet lottery – with one Fever employee sat very comfortably at 190,000th place at the time of writing.
Nevertheless, the lucky few who managed to snap up a ticket will be treated to a near extra-terrestrial experience of unfathomable levels of glamour, fierceness and ear-shattering vocals. Not to make anyone feel bad but we know for sure that there will probably never be a concert to top this will there… like c’mon.
