Refigure

Dipping into Brighton Festival, Rifa and Chris see Sunny Singh in conversation about her new book A Bollywood State Of Mind and watch Natalie Sharp's experimental solo mixed media performance Marra! connecting her heritage in Cumbria and the Seychelles. They also watch a bunch of Netflix stuff about coercive control. Rifa is reading Meiko Kawakami's Heaven and Chris is reading Roxanne De B...

Chris and Rifa attempt to make it through Richard Gadd's controversial Netflix dramedy Baby Reindeer and enjoy Dunstan Bruce's Chumbawamba documentary I Get Knocked Down . Rifa goes to UXCampBrighton unconference. Chris is reading Richard Norris of The Grid's memoir Strange Things Are Happening , while Rifa is reading the Tate Magazine (again). Thanks very much for listening.

Refigure podcast with Chris and Rifa returns for a 7th season of the homemade culture review show from the English south coast. This week, we're watching the TV series Shōgun on Disney+ and we went to Tate Modern to see Yoko Ono: Music Of The Mind . In 'What You Reading For?' Chris is reading the new Joel Morris dissection of comedy, Be Funny Or Die and Rifa bought Yoko Ono's littl...

To end 2023, Rifa and Chris reflect on their year in arts and culture, while drinking several glasses of the good stuff.

Chris and Rifa talk about Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé . Rifa is reading Angela Davis - Freedom Is A Constant Struggle and Chris is reading Aflo The Poet's new poetry zine Warm Up . Please send us your questions for next week's Best Of 2023 episode, when we'll try to answer anything you throw at us.

This week Rifa and Chris dug into two 'end of the world' TV things: they watched Sam Esmail's Netflix movie Leave The World Behind , starring Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali and Ethan Hawke. They also watched the new TV series A Murder At The End Of The World , made by Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij (creators of The OA ) which stars Emma Corrin and Clive Owen. Rifa is reading Sultana&#3...

Chris and Rifa are annoyed by the Squid Game gameshow and inspired by Tate Britain's new major exhibition Women In Revolt. In What You Reading For? Rifa is reading Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall, while Chris is re-reading John Higgs' The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned A Million Pounds .

We didn't have a chance to review stuff together in the midseason break, so this week we chat about our own recent creative stuff. Chris chats about the minitour playing in the band with Jim Bob, as well as an album he's producing, while Rifa unpacks her current adventures in painting with acrylics. Rifa is reading Katy Hessel's The Story Of Art Without Men and Chris is reading Olga Ra...

Chris and Rifa take the ferry to the Eye Filmmuseum in the north of Amsterdam, see an exhibition by film artist Janis Rafa, 'Feed Me, Cheat Me, Eat Me'. They also chat about Chila Kumari Singh Berman's works in neon, including new commission 'The Shining Lights Of Service', which is hung off the side of Brighton's Royal Pavilion. Rifa is reading Travis Alabanza's None O...

Rifa and Chris are in Amsterdam, where they visit the infamous Sex Museum and check out Nan Goldin's major retrospective This Will Not End Well at Stedelijk. In 'What You Reading For?' Chris is reading Zoe Gilbert's novel Mischief Acts , while Rifa is reading Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. Thank you for listening, it means a lot. If you're enjoying Ref...

Chris and Rifa dive into two vaguely football related doc series, the Netflix show Beckham and the Disney+ series Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story . Rifa is reading Regena Thomashaur's book Pussy: A Reclamation , while Chris is reading Ocean Vuong's debut novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and also Vuong's award-winning poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds . If you&...

A Brighton-heavy episode this week, as Chris and Rifa check out the exhibition Lee Miller: Dressed at Brighton Museum, then hang out at Embodied Realities, at The Old Market, as part of the new Dreamy Place festival. Rifa is reading a book about menopause and Chris is reading Julian Jaynes' classic The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind .

Weekly bitesize arts and culture chat with Chris and Rifa. This week Rifa and Chris go to Eastbourne for the Turner Prize 2023 exhibition. They watch both Taylor Swift's new Eras Tour concert film and Talking Heads' remastered Stop Making Sense at the cinema. Rifa is reading the Black London guidebook by Avril Nanton and Jody Burton, while Chris is reading Kashmir Hill's investigation...

Welcome to Refigure, a weekly arts and culture conversation with Chris and Rifa. This week we saw The Creator in the cinema and also caught up with season two of Reservation Dogs on Disney+ ahead of season three's UK launch in a week or two. Chris is reading Naomi Klein's new book Doppelganger and Rifa is reading bell hooks' The Will To Change about masculinity.

Rifa and Chris chat about new Korean-American film Past Lives, the directorial debut of Celine Song, and check out blues-rock band The Jon Amor Trio in a village hall at a birthday party. Rifa is reading the British Museum's picture book Goddess, written by Janina Ramirez and illustrated by Sarah Walsh, while Chris is reading David Graeber's classic social history book Debt: The First 5,00...

Chris and Rifa discuss the musical A Strange Loop with an annoyed sidebar about the state of The Barbican, and chat about Netflix documentary series Live To 100: The Secrets Of The Blue Zones . Rifa is enjoying coffee table books on the artist Hilma af Klint, while Chris is reading Katherine Rundell's biography of the 17th century poet John Donne, Super-Infinite .

Chris and Rifa talk about Tate Britain's permanent collection rehang, visiting Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris and the Black Brighton Market. Rifa is reading Hafsa Zayyan's We Are All Birds Of Uganda and Chris is reading David Grann's The Wager .

Chris and Rifa's weekly review of our adventures in the arts, diversity and culture. This week we watch unsettling low key film The Assistant , starring Julia Garner, which shows the entertainment industry normalising abuse and suppressing dissent. We also watch Beyoncé's vivid and arresting semi-abstract musical Black Is King on Disney+ made in response to her involvement with The Lion King reboo...

Chris and Rifa's bitesize arts and diversity review show. This week we watch Mrs America on the BBC iPlayer, starring Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne, set in the 1970s USA, telling the story of the battle for the Equal Rights Amendment. We also bing-watch all three seasons of Sky dramedy Get Shorty , starring Chris O'Dowd as a gangster trying to break into Hollywood. In What You Reading For? Rifa is...

Welcome to Chris and Rifa's bitesize arts, diversity and culture review show. This week we watch the third season of Norwegian viking comedy Norsemen on Netflix. Then Rifa has an unexpectedly strong reaction to new film How To Build A Girl , starring Beanie Feldstein, directed by Coky Giedroyc and based on Caitlin Moran's comic fictionalised memoir. In What You Reading For? Rifa has joined a book...

Welcome to Refigure with Chris and Rifa, a weekly podcast about the arts, diversity and culture. This week we are both blown away by Michaela Coel's acclaimed new comedy-drama series I May Destroy You on BBC iPlayer. We also binge-watch the entire run of Danish/Swedish mystery thriller The Bridge , which we actually paid money for, as Rifa discovers her love for Nordic noir. In What You Reading Fo...

Chris and Rifa's weekly bitesize review of the arts, diversity and culture. This week we watched Will Ferrell's new comedy Eurovision , which sent us down a rabbit hole of watching Icelandic films and documentaries. Then we watched the powerful new Netflix documentary Disclosure , about the history of how American TV and cinema has representated transgender people onscreen – and how that has impac...

Welcome to Refigure, Chris and Rifa's continuing home-based bitesize covid-avoiding adventures in the arts, diversity and culture. It's the fiftieth episode of Refigure but we're so hardcore we forgot to even mention it in the show. Yes please to cake, though, if you insist. This week we binge-watch brainmelting Netflix high concept game show The Floor Is Lava (or 'The Kwiksave Maze') then we dug...

Chris and Rifa's continuing home-based adventures in culture, diversity and the arts. This week we wear masks to a Black Lives Matter protest in Brighton. Then we watch Steve Carrell's new Netflix comedy series Space Force with John Malkovich and Lisa Kudrow, about a Trump-style military run space initiative. Then we disagree about Spike Lee's new film Da 5 Bloods – also on Netflix – sta...

Chris and Rifa's continuing adventures in the arts, diversity and culture. This week we watch Mark Cousin's epic cinema history series Women Make Film , narrated by Tilda Swinton, Jane Fonda and others. We also binge-watch the fifth series of tearjerking Netflix makeover show Queer Eye . Then we fall into a difficult, not necessarily successful conversation about the removal of statues of slave tr...