Lucy Carter

Student journalist

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels

Hello!

I am a freelance journalist with an interest in culture, arts and lifestyle writing. I enjoy writing about a wide range of topics, and I am always looking for new opportunities!

My Recent Work

‘The Apprentice’: time to let go?

The Apprentice has been running for 16 seasons, its 17 years on the small screen cementing it as a staple of BBC reality TV. The behemoth has sparked countless entertaining moments, gained a loyal following of fans who tune in year after year, and made it that many people’s first reaction to Prokofiev’s “March of the Capulets” is ‘hey, isn’t this The Apprentice’s theme?’. Despite the world of business being to many of us (myself included) deeply uninteresting, The Apprentice managed to turn this

The Stressful State of Self Care

Over the past few years, self-care has become a household phrase. The market is flooded with products, lifestyle guides and activities all said to help you feel, and be, “better”. The constant, aggressive advertising telling us to ‘relax!’ and ‘take time for ourselves!’ would be ironic if it wasn’t so insidious.

The base concept of self-care is the simple idea that we should take better care of ourselves, letting ourselves take a moment away from a world that seems to constantly be getting fast

The Many Pitfalls of Christmas Shopping

Picture the scene: it’s December. You can’t move for twinkling lights and mince pie memorabilia, coffee shops have switched to their festive takeaway cups, and if you hear “All I Want For Christmas is You” one more time, you might scream. ‘Tis the season, and you’re yet to buy presents for all the friends and relatives that you have to show your appreciation for with material goods.

Of course, the main goal of Christmas is to get someone a present that is better than anything anyone else got th
The Indiependent •

'Peggy For You' Delivers Powerful Performances: Review

Revived at Hampstead Theatre where it debuted in 1999, Alan Plater’s Peggy For You presents a day in the office of theatrical agent Peggy Ramsay (Tamsin Greig), as she deals with a maelstrom of clients, business deals and personal crises.

With the play’s action taking place over such a short space of time, the narrative takes abrupt changes of direction and wanders through conversations. Some threads are left unconcluded—Peggy’s new client Simon (Josh Finan), for example, never gets a definitiv

Has ‘Squid Game’ been lost in translation?

Squid Game, one of Netflix’s most recent releases, has been an instant hit. The Korean thriller has garnered serious critical acclaim, alongside impressive viewing figures making it the streaming service’s most successful original series of all time. The cast has rocketed to international fame, and audiences are already demanding a follow-up. However, despite viewers’ adoration of the show, a major issue has arisen regarding the English subtitles, prompting a wider discussion of the role of tran

The curse of reboots

We live in a time of overwhelming media choice, with an ever-growing number of streaming services all vying for our attention. However, scrolling through these many platforms reveals a somewhat troubling phenomenon. Browsing your options, you might feel a sense of deja-vu, with the same series cropping up multiple times. Recently, rebooted series have been saturating the market, with new and updated versions of well-loved series being brought back for another go on the small screen. While some a

Creeper ‘American Noir’ review: stunning, dark drama

Since Creeper’s inception in 2014, it’s fair to say that they’ve been on quite a journey. Starting out as a small, punky band in Southampton, they’ve since gone on to tour America, win a flurry of awards and work their way up to the main stages of festivals. As they’ve been making their way in the industry, their musical releases have gone from strength to strength. Every album and EP has a distinctive sound, with the band demonstrating their continual evolution and ability to turn their hand to

‘Cruel Summer’: not just nineties nostalgia

The 90s are back, baby! Cargo pants, baby tees, and double denim are back in mainstream fashion – and the TV industry is following suit. After the recent fascination with 80s nostalgia, it was inevitable that the subsequent decade would be the next era to be revived. Cruel Summer, available on Amazon Prime, jumps onto this trend and takes us back to mid-1990s Texas, pairing throwback tunes with a dark and gripping mystery.

The ten-part series takes place across three consecutive summers, with e

‘Gossip Girl’ 2021: none of the drama, none of the fun

The Gossip Girl reboot, all six episodes of which were recently released onto BBC iPlayer, are (to put it kindly) terrible.

This might seem like too broad a judgement to make. Surely an updated version of the (dare I say) classic series was a great idea. With life being more and more influenced by the power of social media, the concept of some omniscient, anonymous voyeur peeking into and exposing the lives of Manhattan’s elite couldn’t be more relevant. However, this reboot lacks everything th

Reaching the limit with dating shows

Dating shows! Love Island (of course), Naked Attraction, First Dates, First Dates Hotel (for some variation), Dinner Date…the list goes on, seemingly forever. Why are there so many of them? What’s the appeal? Arguably there’s a heartwarming explanation – maybe people like watching others fall in love. Or perhaps they’re more of a way to watch people embarrass themselves and feel a little better about our own lives. Whatever the reason, there’s clearly an audience for these shows, as new variatio