Refigure

Chris and Rifa take their weekly dip into the choppy waters of culture, tech and diversity. This week we catch up with two iconic queer TV shows: the second season of makeover reality hit Queer Eye on Netflix and groundbreaking FX drama series Pose , about the underground trans ball scene in 1980s New York, which is on the BBC iPlayer. This expanded into a broader conversation about LGBTQI and QTI...

Rifa and Chris do their weekly dance of near-death with the all powerful octopus of culture, art, tech and diversity. This week we reflect on Jim Bob's solo show at Shepherds Bush Empire (where Chris was part of the band). We then binge-watch the second series of Brit Marling's brilliant reality-bending mystery TV series The OA , which has gone up on Netflix. Finally we taste-test three different...

We made a BONUS episode of Refigure, in which we unpick our reactions to Ricky Gervais' new TV series After Life made for Netflix, which has had a pile of attention and wild praise. Too convoluted and lengthy a conversation to include in the main episode. Enjoy! As always, please subscribe and 'like' and leave a nice rating and review. We're on Facebook and Instagram . Back next week with a normal...

Yo! Welcome to Chris and Rifa's weekly ramble through the arts, culture, tech and diversity. This week we went to the pictures to watch Captain Marvel and we also did our first Tate Modern trip of the year, to check out Dorothea Tanning, Franz West and Pierre Bonnard, though he scarcely got a look in. We recorded the Tate segment in the members' café, so it's a lot noisier and harder to hear than...

Chris and Rifa's weekly dive into the arts, culture, tech and diversity.  This week, we watch a bunch of new and returning British TV sitcoms including Fleabag , Partridge , Home and Derry Girls .  Rifa goes on a bell hooks-inspired poetry workshop and mourns 80s youth telly icon Magenta Divine, while Chris accidentally uncovers an audio archive of his Great Uncle Reg's first-hand accoun...

Chris and Rifa's chaotic and giggly weekly dive into the arts, culture, tech and diversity.  This week we go to the cinema to see Spiderman – Into The Spiderverse ahead of The Story Conference (which Rifa organised and compered) where Justin K. Thompson, the film's production designer, gives a superb talk. We also binge-watch the second season of Netflix fantasy show The Dragon Prince , makin...

Chris and Rifa return with a second season of Refigure, our weekly bitesize culture wig-out.  This week we binge-watched Netflix show Russian Doll , co-created by Natasha Lyonne and Amy Poehler.  Meanwhile Chris went to an actual cinema to watch National Geographic's BAFTA-winning climbing documentary Free Solo and Rifa fell in love with indie/hip hop/soul singer Lizzo, especially her cu...

Chris and Rifa's week in the arts, culture, diversity and tech. Episode #15 – last in the current series. We argue about the latest TV version of a John Le Carré novel, Park Chan-Wook's adaptation of The Little Drummer Girl, starring Florence Pugh, Michael Shannon and Alexander Skarsgard. We also binged on Netflix comedy Great News and compared it to the crop of similar shows like 30 Rock and The...

Rifa and Christopher's weekly misadventures in the arts, culture, tech and diversity. Episode #14 – our penultimate episode of Season One. This week we went to the cinema to check out Steve McQueen's intense new heist thriller Widows, starring Viola Davis. We also took another trip up to Tate Modern to look at Christian Marclay's wonderful 2010 piece Clock, built from cut up clips from throughout...

Christopher and Rifa slowly open a creaky door onto the arts, culture, tech and diversity. Episode #13. Unlucky for some. Rifa manages to get a ticket for Bristol's hottest righteous rock band Idles at the Concorde 2. Meanwhile, still avoiding live bands, Chris checks out Truestory Theatre's imaginative production of Dracula at The Spire. We also binge the new Netflix reboot of Sabrina The Teenage...

Rifa and Chris scrabble through the detritus of the week's arts, culture, tech and diversity. Episode #12 is meant to be a Netflix special but our fearsome pair stupidly ate a load of intense Thai takeout during taping, so the second half goes a bit loopy in a chilli-high haze. Anyway, they watch the new Derren Brown special Sacrifice, in which Derren tries to solve racism by attempting to 'persua...

Rifa and Chris waffle on about their week in the arts, culture, tech and inclusivity. Episode #11 is a bit more highfalutin than usual. Rifa gets invited to the Woman Of The Year Awards and brings home a bulging goodie bag, while Chris stays in with new Netflix' new Paul Greengrass film 22 July. Then they also go to Convivial Tools one-day symposium, inspired by Ivan Illich, which takes place at t...

Rifa and Chris trample through the wreckage of their week in the arts, culture, tech and diversity. Safe home from Scotland, in episode #10 our fearless pair dive into mainstream zeitgeist telly to watch the smash hit opening episode of the new series of the BBC's Doctor Who *SHOW INCLUDES MILD SPOILERS*. They also visit TomTech's VR Lab at The Old Market in Hove and watch Jacques Tati's full-leng...

Chris and Rifa dig through their week in the arts, culture, tech and diversity. Episode #9 is our Scottish Art Trip Special: we visited the freshly opened V&A Dundee to check out the Scottish Design Galleries permanent collection. The next day we went to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where we were blown away by Rip It Up – The Story Of Scottish Pop. Along the way we ate at Dundee's...

Chris and Rifa dig into their week in culture. This week we taped the show on an iPhone internal microphone, in a hotel room in central Edinburgh, so forgive us if the sound is a bit off. We went to the V&A in London to check out the Video Games exhibition but got distracted by the even better Future Starts Now exhibition about how technology is reshaping all our lives. We also checked out Danish...

Welcome to Refigure, in which Chris and Rifa talk about their week in culture with their mouths full of Japanese food. In episode #7 our team binges BBC America thriller series Killing Eve, as well as getting unnecessarily upset about the first episode of Hugo Blick's overwrought drama Black Earth Rising. Rifa chats about her latest She Says Brighton event and Chris recommends Saatchi in-house com...

Rifa and Christopher unpack a week of culture, tech, reading and general nonsense. In episode 06 Chris spends the week on a storytelling and virtual reality training course, while Rifa catches up with Netflix doc series Wild Wild Country and shows her cousin around Brighton. Rifa is thinking about an opinion piece in the Tate magazine, while Chris recommends a longread in The Daily Beast about the...

"When you buried us you didn't realise we were seeds." Chris and Rifa binged HBO miniseries Sharp Objects, starring Amy Adams and talk about inclusion and diversity advocate David McQueen. Rifa is reading Maya Angelou and Chris is reading David Grann's 'Killers Of The Flower Moon'.

Episode #4 – "It's not Adventure Time!" This week Rifa and Chris watch Reading Festival livestreams on the BBC iPlayer and compare two high-production podcast series, Slow Burn (Slate Plus) and Folk On Foot (Matthew Bannister). In 'What You Reading For' (yeah our book bit has a proper name now – and its own jingle) Rifa got through Dave Eggers' Monk Of Mokha (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin) in one day an...

"James Brown's in it!" Rifa and Christopher recap their week in culture, including a day out to Tate Modern, the legacy of Aretha Franklin and whether The Blues Brothers film is any good. Chris recommends N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy and (sticking like glue to the art theme) Rifa is reading the exhibition book of last year's Soul Of A Nation show, which was also at the Tate.

'Namaste' just means 'hello', yeah? This week Chris and Rifa talk about the demise of local radio, decolonising beauty and the annoying language of yoga.

"So who would Frida Kahlo choose as a pepper pot, if she was a salt shaker?" Welcome to Refigure episode #01, in which Chris and Rifa sit in their brand new bed and recap their week in culture and silliness.