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Spectator
20-07-2025
- General
- Spectator
Nurses deserve more credit
When I was recently in hospital for almost six months, one of my closest and most impish friends – who knows me very well and figured that I wouldn't be up for anything serious – would bring me the novels of Betty Neels. Neels is largely forgotten now, but between 1969 and her death in 2001 she wrote 134 novels for the publisher Mills & Boon. Her male protagonists are often Dutch surgeons (her own husband was a Dutch sailor) and the plots are a bit samey: spirited nurse hates arrogant doctor/surgeon/consultant but eventually falls A over T in love with him. At the same time as I was reading Neels's novels, I was watching with my devious little hack's eye the interaction between the doctors and nurses around me, and it couldn't have been more different. Nurses spoke to nurses, and doctors to doctors; 'The only time the doctors speak to us is when they want us to do something they don't want to do,' laughed one beautiful young nurse. I thought of this when reading about the new threatened doctors strike and how analysis from the Royal College of Nursing shows that 'nurses pay has been so severely eroded that starting salaries are now over £8,000 lower than if wages had kept up with inflation since 2010.' Is it a class thing? Nurses are more likely to have gone to state schools, while doctors are more likely to be from the middle class. Doctors staged about a dozen strikes in 2023 and 2024 under the Tories, were immediately given a 22 per cent pay rise by Labour and still feel like they're entitled to more. On a recent episode of Jeremy Vine on Channel 5, an older, working-class female community care worker in Manchester, Sarah, rang in to oppose the doctors' new demand. She took on a posh, young female doctor ('Helena Pugh' – you couldn't make it up) and matched her claim for claim about how hard she worked. All for a damn sight less money and prestige. One nurse at my hospital ward told me: 'I've done this job since I was young, and I'm just about to retire. In my experience, the hierarchy is still pretty much there and the consultants are still unapproachable.' (Mistrust of 'weird' consultants was very evident among the nurses I met.) 'Nursing is an ill-defined profession,' she continued. 'We're like a sponge sitting in the middle of the team, soaking up all the bits that no one else will do, from admin to cleaning.' A nurse at the Royal Sussex told me: 'Nurses make terrible strikers because we're out there on the picket line, then our alarm goes off and we run back onto the wards because we're needed. They know they've got us…' A thread on Reddit by a nurse summed it up for me: 'I'm not resentful of junior doctors striking. I am bitter how bad we do in comparison to their success though. If every nurse just walked out, can you imagine the chaos that would ensue? Patients would come to harm; there would be chaos on the wards, in ICU, in A&E. At the end of the day, nurses do the majority of the labour and graft. But look at the nurses strike in America; the majority walked out and the strikes lasted three days. They got what they wanted. I think if we stayed strong, we would be in a much stronger position.' To return to the class issue, maybe the difference is that nursing is a calling – like being a nun, if 'the NHS is the closest thing the English people have to a religion' as Nigel Lawson quipped – while being a doctor is something clever bourgeois girls and boys become if they were good at science subjects at school. Whatever, the mismatch is unfortunate, and having reverberations far beyond who will and won't strike. People may be losing their religion; earlier this month the new boss of the NHS, Sir Jim Mackey, said: 'It feels like we've built mechanisms to keep the public away because it's an inconvenience.' Though she was a comedy character in Carry Onfilms, it's telling and slightly surreal how many people with recent experience of the NHS as patients yearn for a Hattie Jacques-type 'matron' to sort it all out. There is also a consensus that after graduating, doctors should be made to work for at least five years minimum in the NHS before decamping to distant shores – the same places that the nurses are now being tempted to by adverts on television. In the sunlit wards of Australia, away from the responsibility that comes with being the carriers of a religious flame, maybe at last the romantic alliances between nurses and doctors dreamed of by Betty Neels can finally come to fruition. Until then, it's ironic to think that even the snogging game my generation played as children – 'doctors and nurses' – assumed that this was the natural order of things. If the game was played realistically these days, the two chosen children would simply go into separate rooms, and fume about how easy the other one has it.
New Statesman
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The romantasy infatuation
Fairy tales, it seems, are out of fashion. After all, what do they have to teach a modern reader? Finding Prince Charming is passé; we should be getting comfortable with our own company. Evil stepmothers aren't such a problem when you can just go no contact. And going to sleep for 100 years no longer has to affect your career arc – we're all on our own timelines! Yet look a little closer and you might find that a new kind of fairy tale is alive and well. Because what are most of them if not love stories, set in magical worlds? Romantasy, a relatively new literary genre that offers exactly that, is, largely thanks to its popularity on TikTok, having a seismic effect on the books industry. As the name suggests, the genre combines fantasy realms, drawn from the depths of folklore, Gothic fiction and mythology, with a romantic plot – and readers cannot get enough. Science fiction and fantasy sales were up more than 40 per cent in 2024. Romantasy author Sarah J Maas, whose book A Court of Thorns and Roses was released in 2015, was the best-selling author in the US last year, selling 7.7 million copies, and Fourth Wing (2023), the first in romantasy star Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series, was the seventh bestselling book in the UK across all genres. In January the third instalment of that series, Onyx Storm, became the fastest-selling adult title ever, selling 2.7 million copies in its first week, after people queued in bookshops at midnight dressed up as their favourite characters to buy it on its day of release. These authors find themselves in a curious position (as well as unthinkably rich). Harry Potter and true fairy tales are, of course, for children. But as much as romantasy has inherited the feverish fandom that often comes with an absorbing magical world – fans of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are some of the most obsessive in the world – it is also the natural successor to Mills & Boon, Jilly Cooper and 50 Shades of Grey. 'Dragon porn' has become shorthand for romantasy; steamy sex, or 'spice', to use TikTok parlance, is part of the happy ending. In these fairy tales, the heroines can have it both ways, winning authority over the entire magical realm and a handsome stay-at-home fairy husband. Violet Sorrengail, the breathless narrator of Yarros's Empyrean series is a typical romantasy heroine. She's in her early 20s, studying at Basgiath War College to be a dragon rider, despite being smaller and less physically fit than others in her 'quadrant' (this is widely thought to be a nod to the fact that Yarros suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome). She can 'wield' lightning, communicate telepathically with her two dragons and loves nothing more than riding them – except perhaps allowing her classmate, previously sworn enemy Xaden Riorson, to fuck her senseless. Xaden – who also rides dragons, and with whom she can also communicate telepathically due to a dragon-related loophole – is her spiritual and sexual soulmate. 'Xaden is mine,' Violet thinks. 'My heart, my soul, my everything. He channelled from the earth to save me, and I'll scour the world until I find a way to save him right back.' Such lines are unfortunately characteristic of the genre's prose. 'He hasn't kissed me like this since before the battle at Basgiath,' Violet notes. Yarros's dialogue comes thick and fast – at times it's more like reading a script than a novel. Where the authors diverge in fantastical creatures they coalesce in style: in Onyx Storm (dragons) but also A Court of Thorns of Roses (faeries) and The Serpent of the Wings of Night (vampires, by Carissa Broadbent), line breaks and full stops are used liberally for dramatic effect. ('Fast. They're too damned fast,' says Violet as she encounters some 'venin', AKA the baddies of Navarre.) Violet's warrior status, her appetite for danger, her courage, her unbridled sexual desire, put her in a different category from the hapless virgins of Disney and the Brothers Grimm who are, all these years later, still stuck in their dusty old volumes fannying about with spinning wheels and dwarfs. Feyre, the narrator of Maas's bestseller A Court of Thorns and Roses, is also a scrappy little fighter, one who carries daggers and arrows and scoffs early doors at her sisters 'chattering about some young man or the ribbons they'd spotted in the village when they should have been chopping wood'. When Feyre unknowingly kills a faerie, and is captured and taken away from her family to the dangerous faerie kingdom over the border and forced to live in the lap of luxury, she protests at the princess treatment: 'I hadn't worn a dress in years. I wasn't about to start, not when escape was my main priority. I wouldn't be able to move freely in a gown.' Both Maas and Yarros's heroines are strong and independent – and yet in both cases they are bound to the man they love, or will grow to love (most romantasy relationships begin as enemies), through life and death. 'You're the only one capable of killing me,' says Xaden, who has been infected by venin as a sacrifice for Violet. In A Court of Thorns and Roses, a loose retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Feyre must fall in love with the 'High Lord' Tamlin to break the curse on his kingdom. Their every interaction is loaded with danger: Tamlin is a shapeshifter and could, if he wanted to, tear her to shreds with the huge claws that are at risk of appearing every time he slightly loses emotional control. Similarly, in Broadbent's The Serpent of the Wings of Night, the heroine Oraya is a human always endangered in a world of vampires. Raihn, her vampire love interest, could kill her, and she has a duty to kill him. 'I could open his shirt, slide my hands over the expanse of his chest, and thrust my poison blade right here – right into his heart. He could tear away this ridiculous delicate spiderweb of a dress and cut me open,' Broadbent writes. 'The two of us could burn each other up.' Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe This violent, exaggerated language persists across the sexual scenes. 'He's kissing me like I'm the only air he can breathe'; 'nothing existed but him'; 'My entire world constricted to the touch of his lips on my skin'. Orgasms are 'fracturing', 'splintering', 'shattering', 'unravelling'. The intensity and danger is part of the sexual fantasy – but the heroine in each case is in some way just as dangerous to the man as he is her. Readers will be reminded here of Twilight, the late 2000s young adult series by Stephanie Meyer that caused a similar frenzy among teenage girls. In Twilight a normal high school girl, Bella Swan, falls in love with a vampire, the sublime Edward Cullen. Bella was dangerous to Edward because he was dangerous to her – he loved her so much that he couldn't risk endangering her by 'losing control' (read: having sex and unwittingly tearing her body to shreds). But what made Twilight so compelling to young women hoping for a perfect love was the unique power Bella had over Edward, and the fact that he did stay in control despite his potential to cause her harm. A similar dynamic pervades A Court of Thorns and Roses: 'The full force of that wild, unrelenting High Lord's power focused solely on me – and I felt the storm contained beneath his skin, so capable of sweeping away everything I was, even in its lessened state. But I could trust him, trust myself to weather that mighty power. I could throw all that I was at him and he wouldn't balk. 'Give me everything,' I breathed.' Elsewhere, though, we are reminded of Feyre's pluck: she is not powerless against Tamlin. Rather, she chooses to sleep with him when she wants to, and doesn't when she doesn't: 'Don't ever disobey me again,' he said, his voice a deep purr that ricocheted through me, awakening everything and lulling it into complicity. Then I reconsidered his words and straightened. He grinned at me in that wild way, and my hand connected with his face. 'Don't tell me what to do,' I breathed, my palm stinging. 'And don't bite me like some enraged beast.' Though plenty of effort is taken to give gravitas to the imagined worlds they feel thinly drawn, like costumes and sets. Names for places and people lack the consistent and distinctive syntax of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, and immersion in the world is often reduced to crude signifiers, particularly adapted curse words. Yarros, for example, is careful only ever to refer to 'gods', plural, as in 'oh my gods' and 'godsdamn', usually deployed at moments of sexual ecstasy; occasionally she opts for 'by Malek', as in, 'by Malek, I fucking love you'. Maas goes for 'Cauldron boil me!', while Broadbent opts for 'Goddess', 'Mother', and the exclamation 'Ix's tits'. If all that feels silly, it's nothing on the fact that, despite stating at the outset of Onyx Storm that the text 'has been faithfully transcribed from Navarrian into the modern language' and yet the students of Basgiath War College still understand concepts like 'boundaries', 'overthinking' and 'hitting the gym'. You half expect them to return to their chambers from a great battle and crack open a can of Diet Coke. These are, clearly, very modern fairy tales – and, as that would suggest, full of contradictions. A handsome prince, yes, but one who does not control you, one over whom you maintain a sexual power, one who wants you to be free of the damage he could inflict on you. Intense sex, yes, but sex that is incredibly high stakes. A heroine who is powerful and independent but believes in and experiences the kind of true love that is increasingly being called into question by our rational, transactional world. That's the real fantasy: to be she who has it all. Who has the things that we once wanted and the new ones. The good bits of this and of that. The perfect man, and the perfect self. The danger and the safety. The pleasure and the pain. It's not surprising we need a magical land to imagine those things could be true. [See also: English literature's last stand] Related
The Star
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Get ready to swoon: Ishaan Khatter and Bhumi Pednekar's chemistry in 'The Royals' leaves viewers weak-kneed
Debashine Thangevelo | Published 5 days ago At the moment, social media is abuzz with talk of 'The Royals' on Netflix. Curious about the high praise, I decided to binge the eight-part series while recuperating from a severe flu. Echoing the allure of "Bridgerton", this series delves into the captivating history of a royal family, revealing hidden love affairs, concealed family truths, and monetary difficulties. The plot, while simple and lacking significant depth, serves as a platform for the talented cast to inject considerable energy and dynamism into the narrative. Admittedly, I wasn't bowled over after two episodes, but I put aside my misgivings and continued. And I'm glad I did. The series and the characters grow on you. Episode one plays out like the pages of a Mills & Boon novel: a dreamy guy, shirt open, showcasing his chiselled features, is being filmed on a horse on the beach. The shoot is disrupted by a jogger, who defiantly cuts across the cordoned-off public area. This is how Aviraaj 'Fizzy' Singh (Ishaan Khatter) and Sophia Kanmani Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar), the visionary CEO of Work Potato, first meet. Talk about the perfect setup for their love story, which hits many snags in the series, more so after a failed hook-up between the two. The premise centres on Sophia attempting to launch a pioneering hospitality initiative, where normal people get to enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience of living in a palace like royalty. Despite the board being hesitant about this initiative, Sophia is backed by her co-founder, Kunal (Udit Arora). As fate would have it, her search for a place dovetails with Motibagh Palace in Morpur being in dire need of restoration. Aviraaj's younger brother, Yuvaraj Digvijay "Diggy" Singh (Vihaan Samat), proposes that they strike a deal with Sophia's company to save the family from financial ruin. His mother, Maharani Padmaja "Paddy" Singh (Sakshi Tanwar), grandmother Rajmata Maji Saheba Bhagyashree Devi (Zeenat Aman) and younger sister Yuvarani Divyaranjini "Jinnie" Singh (Kavya Trehan) are aligned with the proposal. Of course, when Aviraaj returns home for his father's will and to take the reins, he is not a fan of the idea. And he is combative every step of the way, which riles Sophia as her career is on the line if the venture fails. Khatter, who streamers would remember from 'The Perfect Couple' last year, is perfect for his princely role. Confident and charismatic, his portrayal also includes a subtle but expected arrogance. Pednekar is a ravishing beauty who holds her own against him. The connection between them is electrifying, and fans can't stop raving about it. With admirable finesse and grace, she embodies her role as a lady boss, and her undeniably sexy wardrobe is simply stunning. Given her experience in social dramas, her emotional range is off the charts. The supporting cast adds a wonderful dimension to the storytelling, with Diggy being an aspiring chef, Jinnie deciding to come out of the closet, and Paddy finally being true to herself after spending much of her life covering up one of the biggest family secrets - her late husband's secret boyfriend. Meanwhile, Aviraaj is conflicted about taking over from his dad, especially when so much was left unsaid, as he resented him for breaking up their family. "The Royals" is a series that evokes strong reactions, landing squarely in either the love or loath category. Yet, those who embrace its romantic entanglements, dramatic flair, intricate deceptions, power dynamics, and characters' yearning for authenticity will find themselves captivated by its lavish visuals and surprising plot developments. The cliffhanger ending strongly suggests the promise of a second season. Rating: 3/5 *** solid and enjoyable, though not groundbreaking. Below is another similar series to check out: "Bridgerton" I would suggest binge-watching all the available series, ahead of season four, which drops on the platform next year. The sweeping tale is set during the Regency era in England, where eight close-knit siblings of the powerful Bridgerton family attempt to find love. The casting, premise and direction from this Shondaland offering will sweep you off your feet.
IOL News
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Get ready to swoon: Ishaan Khatter and Bhumi Pednekar's chemistry in 'The Royals' leaves viewers weak-kneed
Ishaan Khatter as Aviraaj "Fizzy" Singh and Bhumi Pednekar as Sophia Kanmani Shekhar in a scene from 'The Royals'. Image: Netflix At the moment, social media is abuzz with talk of 'The Royals' on Netflix. Curious about the high praise, I decided to binge the eight-part series while recuperating from a severe flu. Echoing the allure of "Bridgerton", this series delves into the captivating history of a royal family, revealing hidden love affairs, concealed family truths, and monetary difficulties. The plot, while simple and lacking significant depth, serves as a platform for the talented cast to inject considerable energy and dynamism into the narrative. Admittedly, I wasn't bowled over after two episodes, but I put aside my misgivings and continued. And I'm glad I did. The series and the characters grow on you. Video Player is loading. 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Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Episode one plays out like the pages of a Mills & Boon novel: a dreamy guy, shirt open, showcasing his chiselled features, is being filmed on a horse on the beach. The shoot is disrupted by a jogger, who defiantly cuts across the cordoned-off public area. This is how Aviraaj 'Fizzy' Singh (Ishaan Khatter) and Sophia Kanmani Shekhar (Bhumi Pednekar), the visionary CEO of Work Potato, first meet. Talk about the perfect setup for their love story, which hits many snags in the series, more so after a failed hook-up between the two. The premise centres on Sophia attempting to launch a pioneering hospitality initiative, where normal people get to enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime experience of living in a palace like royalty. Despite the board being hesitant about this initiative, Sophia is backed by her co-founder, Kunal (Udit Arora). As fate would have it, her search for a place dovetails with Motibagh Palace in Morpur being in dire need of restoration. Aviraaj's younger brother, Yuvaraj Digvijay "Diggy" Singh (Vihaan Samat), proposes that they strike a deal with Sophia's company to save the family from financial ruin. His mother, Maharani Padmaja "Paddy" Singh (Sakshi Tanwar), grandmother Rajmata Maji Saheba Bhagyashree Devi (Zeenat Aman) and younger sister Yuvarani Divyaranjini "Jinnie" Singh (Kavya Trehan) are aligned with the proposal. Ishaan Khatter, Bhumi Pednekar and Udit Arora co-star in 'The Royals'. Image: Netflix Of course, when Aviraaj returns home for his father's will and to take the reins, he is not a fan of the idea. And he is combative every step of the way, which riles Sophia as her career is on the line if the venture fails. Khatter, who streamers would remember from 'The Perfect Couple' last year, is perfect for his princely role. Confident and charismatic, his portrayal also includes a subtle but expected arrogance. Pednekar is a ravishing beauty who holds her own against him. The connection between them is electrifying, and fans can't stop raving about it. With admirable finesse and grace, she embodies her role as a lady boss, and her undeniably sexy wardrobe is simply stunning. Given her experience in social dramas, her emotional range is off the charts. The cast of 'The Royals' in a scene from the series. Image: Netflix The supporting cast adds a wonderful dimension to the storytelling, with Diggy being an aspiring chef, Jinnie deciding to come out of the closet, and Paddy finally being true to herself after spending much of her life covering up one of the biggest family secrets - her late husband's secret boyfriend. Meanwhile, Aviraaj is conflicted about taking over from his dad, especially when so much was left unsaid, as he resented him for breaking up their family. "The Royals" is a series that evokes strong reactions, landing squarely in either the love or loath category. Yet, those who embrace its romantic entanglements, dramatic flair, intricate deceptions, power dynamics, and characters' yearning for authenticity will find themselves captivated by its lavish visuals and surprising plot developments. The cliffhanger ending strongly suggests the promise of a second season. Rating: 3/5 *** solid and enjoyable, though not groundbreaking. Below is another similar series to check out: "Bridgerton" I would suggest binge-watching all the available series, ahead of season four, which drops on the platform next year. The sweeping tale is set during the Regency era in England, where eight close-knit siblings of the powerful Bridgerton family attempt to find love. The casting, premise and direction from this Shondaland offering will sweep you off your feet.
Indian Express
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Bhumi Pednekar: ‘The Royals is a mix of modern-day Bridgerton and Schitt's Creek'
Actor Bhumi Pednekar says her debut web series The Royals is a blend of modern-day Bridgerton and Schitt's Creek, capturing the dysfunctional dynamics of a royal family with a touch of comedy and romance. Billed as a modern-day rom-com, the Netflix show stars Ishaan Khatter as Aviraaj Singh, a reluctant new-age prince, and Pednekar as Sophia Shekhar, a self-made CEO of a start-up, who team up to transform the former's haveli into a luxury B&B experience. As their journey unfolds, viewers can expect a rollercoaster ride of romance, comedy and a whole lot of drama, reads the official synopsis. 'It is (like) a modern-day Bridgerton because of the setting and the world that's been created, but definitely a bit of Schitt's Creek because there's the royal family and the dysfunctionality and everything that happens with them. But I grew up reading Mills & Boon (romance novels), and I'm a very, very big fan of it. This (The Royals) is a very classic boy-girl romance. It's just that there's no damsel-in-distress. It's refreshing,' Pednekar told PTI in an interview. Bridgerton is a British costume drama set in the 19th century's Regency era, whereas the Canadian show Schitt's Creek follows the trials and tribulations of the formerly wealthy Rose family. Both series are available on Netflix. Also Read | Zeenat Aman heaps praise on The Royals co-star Ishaan Khatter: 'He exhibited the courtesies and grace I thought had become virtues of the past' The Royals is created by Rangita and Ishita Pritish Nandy and directed by Priyanka Ghose and Nupur Asthana. While romance is at the core of The Royals, the series ambitiously delves into larger themes such as privilege, power dynamics, and the complexities of contemporary life, including the entourage trend and the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Calling AI a 'disruptive' tool, Bhumi Pednekar said one must use this technological innovation 'responsibly'. 'You can't use it (AI) for things like, 'Create an itinerary for me because I'm going on a holiday.' It's a powerful tool… It depends on how you're using it… When it comes to the creative field, I don't know what the future is going to be like because it's evolving so fast. 'I don't think it can bring the kind of human nuance and touch that somebody writing a script can, but I don't think we are far from that. What's also lacking is that we don't have laws protecting us. There are so many loopholes; you see deep fakes. Today, on Instagram, there are so many times that a lot of AI-generated content looks so real,' the actor added. The Royals also features Sakshi Tanwar, Nora Fatehi, Dino Morea, Milind Soman, Chunky Panday, Vihaan Samat, Kavya Trehan, Sumukhi Suresh, Udit Arora, Lisa Mishra and Luke Kenny. Also Read | Bhumi Pednekar and Ishaan Khatter on the dearth of romantic Hindi films today: 'The genre is not taken seriously' Lisa Mishra, who plays Sophia's (Pednekar) colleague Nikki, describes her character as an independent woman, a role she passionately pursued via multiple rounds of auditions. 'I've been lucky that I got launched on an incredible show by an incredible production house, Call Me Bae. I'm humbled by the fact that I've had two incredible opportunities back-to-back,' the singer-actor said. 'I want to keep pushing the boundary on what a modern Indian woman is. I represent that, both as an NRI and somebody who has been living in India for seven years. These are the roles that are suited best for me,' she added. The Royals is set to stream on Netflix on May 9.
