Isobel Lewis is a journalist, writer and critic based in London. After nearly four years as a culture reporter for The Independent, she now regularly writes for The i and Grazia, where she specialises in stand-up comedy, TV and podcasts. She has also written for publications including The Guardian, The Atlantic and Service95. You can follow Isobel at @izlew on Twitter/X.
I’m standing on a very normal road in Bristol, opposite a very normal-looking house. There’s nothing particularly notable about this property, with its contrasting dark brick, light stone and blue front door. So why does it feel so significant? Perhaps because, to a lot of people, this is an iconic TV location. Nearly two decades ago, this house featured on the hedonistic E4 teen drama Skins, as the home inhabited by the effortlessly cool Tony Stonem (Nicholas Hoult) and his perpetually smoking sister Effy (Kaya Scodelario). Now, 17 years since the show first aired, the home has become a point of pilgrimage for nostalgia-obsessed teenagers on unofficial Skins locations tours of Bristol. In clips filmed here and posted mostly on TikTok, teens pull their moodiest faces as they pose on the curb in front of this regular terraced house. In others, the video makers stand in the front garden; in one particular clip, a young girl does her best Effy smoulder as she stands by the front door, cigarette in hand. @lxuranee #bristol #skins ♬ original sound - camilah.t Their obsession with the show is something I recognise from when I first watched it while growing up as a hormonal teenager in the late 00s. Airing in 2007, Skins was the racy drama set in a Bristol sixth-form college that propelled Jack O’Connell, Daniel Kaluuya and Dev Patel to stardom, each of them going on to have huge international careers. Watching it, you could all t
‘I don’t wanna talk…’ It’s late on a Saturday night – Sunday morning, technically – and the melodic twang and muffled lyrics of ‘The Winner Takes It All’ have drifted through the walls of a nightclub bathroom. Within the cubicles, Abba’s 1980 heartbreak anthem awakens something. ‘It’s my favourite one! I need to run out, I’m peeing!’ yells a woman decked out in sequins as she shoves the door open and scrambles to wash her hands. Around her, drunken girls scream the lyrics in each other’s faces and laddish groups sway with their fingers locked in each other’s hair. Who, but Abba, could evoke such a response? Fifty years have passed since Benny, Björn, Agnetha and Anna-Frid won Eurovision and Abba-mania is on the rise once again. DesignMyNight, the nightlife discovery website, has a whole page dedicated to Abba-themed events, with head of brand Katie Kirwan telling me interest in Abba events rose 153 percent year on year in 2023. That’s why I’m spending my Saturday at Club de Fromage’s ‘Abba special’, one of the numerous parties themed around the Swedish supergroup that is sweeping the country to sold-out crowds. Photograph: Grant WalkerMamma Mia! The Party When I tell friends where I’m going, they all have the same reaction: ‘Abba are really ‘in’ right now, aren’t they?’ But were they ever out? We’re talking about one of the most popular bands of all time in Europe, with a staggering 30 million monthly listeners on Spotify. The 2021 arrival of Abba Voyage, their impress