Rachel Robbins
Bio
Writer-Performer based in the North of England. A joyous, flawed mess.
Please read my stories and enjoy. And if you can, please leave a tip. Money raised will be used towards funding a one-woman story-telling, comedy show.
Stories (165)
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Amadeus
Screenplay: Peter Schaffer Director: Milos Forman Starring: F Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce Going to rewatch Amadeus on the big screen, I was worried. Do you recognise that fear that something you once loved might not meet expectations on revisiting? That the memory might be better than the reality?
By Rachel Robbins6 months ago in Geeks
Pauline Kael. Top Story - July 2025.
Sometimes I pretend to be a 1940s screenwriter. My imaginary ego goes on a trip to tell people about the magic of cinema and the hard work that produces a movie. How you need a writer’s room, money, star power and a way to hoodwink studio executives, because all they care about is money and I’m trying to make art. In 1940s Hollywood, I’m trying to establish cinema as an American artform, with carefully crafted plots, new characters, and risk-taking directors.
By Rachel Robbins6 months ago in Geeks
Not a Bunch of Film Reviews. Top Story - July 2025.
When I write a short story, I would like the story to have details that linger with the reader. That’s the goal – to write so that traces of the tale stay alive after the reading. Like a good meal leaves a taste in the mouth. Or how a song echoes through memories.
By Rachel Robbins7 months ago in Geeks
Ghosting. Honorable Mention in You Were Never Really Here Challenge.
She thought he was dead. Clare saw his name on her recruitment search and she felt something plunge in her chest. Glancing around the office, she half-expected others to have stopped with the same shock, but the life of the office whirred around her. She took a breath and the slightest of hesitations before clicking on his profile.
By Rachel Robbins7 months ago in Fiction
Lollipop
Frigga Haug writes: The accumulation of data on such topics as unemployment, income, marital status, on the share of housework, on the percentage of high-school graduates, etc., has indeed the strange effect that the living women themselves remain external to it even when they are directly affected…
By Rachel Robbins8 months ago in Education
Dear Emanuel. Top Story - June 2025.
Dear Emanuel I know not to start a letter with the phrase, “I am writing” because Mrs Digby let me know that it was superfluous and Mrs D’Rosario told me it was hack. But it is hard to know how to start a letter to a man I only met once.
By Rachel Robbins8 months ago in Humans
Chevalière D’Eon. Runner-Up in History Would’ve Burned This Page Challenge.
History can make myths, provide heroes, take control of our collective memories. History has a powerful hold on the stories we tell. And just as importantly, the stories we don’t or can’t tell. History is a memory, a shared past, made concrete in the words of books. And books can be burned. Burning a book is an attempt to cover the footpath that got us to here. It is a way of shutting down lives that appear out of context, peculiar, not like “us”. It leaves some lives, nameless.
By Rachel Robbins8 months ago in History
Good One (2024)
Written, directed and produced by India Donaldson. Some films feel like great, sweeping epic novels. The sort of book that you would use as a doorstop. Other films can feel like that book, packaged at airports, commercial and formulaic. And then there are the films that feel like short stories, poignant moments, character studies and delicate narration.
By Rachel Robbins8 months ago in Geeks
Wes Anderson
“I aimed for whimsy, but landed on twee. It’s a fine line, people, it’s a fine line.” This is something I can picture my imaginary 1940s screenwriter persona saying. Fed-up with the intensity of films noir, set in the mean streets of dimly-lit cities, she has turned her hand to some light comedy. It doesn’t work. She knows it hasn’t worked. It’s just – well, twee. Too sweet. Lacks bite.
By Rachel Robbins8 months ago in Geeks
Sinners and the Doris Day Fan
Originality, I have been told, is mashing together two separate things or ideas to generate something new. Sometimes it really is that simple. Have you tried a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup? Two good things mashed together. Chocolate yumminess meets the salty splendour of Peanut Butter to produce something delicious.
By Rachel Robbins9 months ago in Geeks
Finding an Audience. Top Story - May 2025.
I write because I have things I want to say. I want to be read. My words might soothe. They might articulate the complex. They might provide escapism into other’s lives. They might have an emotional truth. They might make people laugh.
By Rachel Robbins9 months ago in Writers
