Drama
There isn't much on this term. If you're new to Oxford drama, you might find this a strange complaint. With over 20 theatre productions this autumn (not to mention the 40-something productions likely to be included in Cuppers, the Freshers' competition), Oxford can quite justifiably claim to have the richest theatre scene in the country.
However, this term gets off to an unusually slow start; the OFS is programmed with professional productions for the first fortnight, and the BT season looks the poorer for the loss of Polly Findlay's and Andrew Leveson's planned productions. More significantly, there's nothing at the Moser, and nothing in alternative venues like churches, warehouses, or shops. Michaelmas is traditionally the quietest term of the year, and 2004 is no exception.
The backbone of this term's theatre is a golden season at the OFS. An exceptionally large number of applications allowed the theatre's new management team to pick six productions which don't have an obvious weak link. Comedy makes a pleasingly strong showing, with four of the six weeks.
Harry Lloyd, actor-turned-director, brings us Joe Orton's marvellously dark farce, What the Butler Saw, in 3rd week, and in 5th week Philip Ormrod makes his Oxford directing debut with Patrick Marber's early comedy on gambling, Dealer's Choice. Both are extremely well chosen student plays with a wide audience appeal, and I won't want to miss either. I can't wait to see Elisabeth Gray and Helena Johnson in Noel Coward's deliciously well-made Private Lives, and Gray makes her second appearance of the term as Olivia in Twelfth Night. My production, which stars Charlie Covell as Viola, may provide an alternative to the Oriel sex-fest of the summer.
More serious content at the OFS comes with a new, award-winning translation of Sophocles' Antigone in 4th week - much performed but perhaps the most approachable and personal of all classical tragedies. Collapsible Theatre's production of Tom Stoppard's Galileo received mediocre reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, but a Stoppard world premiere is a coup by anyone's standards and a minor triumph for Oxford drama, and is surely worth supporting in 7th week.
It's a Brown term at the Oxford Playhouse. Helen Brown directs the swashbucklingly romantic Cyrano de Bergerac in 3rd week - a French classic beautifully translated by Anthony Burgess. Former OUDS President Gethin Anthony stars in the demanding role of Cyrano, and is partnered by Caz Dyott as Roxanne. Two weeks later, Sam Brown presents the most controversial production of the term, Elegies for Angels, Punks, and Raving Queens, an AIDS-related musical which has so far been beset by technical issues.
However, Brown directed a well-reviewed Julius Caesar this summer and my money is on Elegies to become the surprise smash of the season.
The Burton-Taylor presents its usual selection of pick-'n'-mix treats. If you haven't visited this tiny studio theatre on Gloucester Green yet, make sure you get there early in term. Go during the week, when audiences are smaller and you can sit on the front row within a couple of feet of the actors. This season contains everything from Pinter to American screenplays; from gay drama to a little-known Coward comedy. At just £4 a ticket, you can see superb and unknown drama for less than the price of a couple of pints round the corner at Far from the Madding Crowd afterwards.
Elsewhere, the Keble O'Reilly presents what may well be the commercial hit of the autumn: the technicians' dream musical, Godspell.
So - not much on this term. But probably just enough to keep you away from that enticing essay - it can wait for another day.
Oxford was well-represented at the Edinburgh Fringe. I'm probably not the best person to ask - I spent most of the month in Sir Toby Belch mode, collapsed red-faced across a table with a pint of cheap beer, a deep-fried chicken leg and a tear-stained copy of the 'Three Weeks' review section stuck to my forehead.
Others seem to have coped better. There was a production of Guys and Dolls on at C-Venues, which cheered me up after I got caught in a rainstorm and lost my shoe. Some recent graduates took up an experimental show in which actors apparently tried to make an audience member lick butter off a glove. A good audience-winning tactic when hardened fringe-goers are penniless and grateful for any calories they can get. Galileo was something of a triumph, getting reviewed in the national press (positively, I think - I did buy a copy of The Guardian that day but dropped it in some Irn Bru before I could read it).
The Imps and The Oxford Revue I know more about. Imps director Jim Grant informs me chirpily that "even on the day we didn't go flyering we got seventeen people in," which in Edinburgh Fringe terms represents a commercial triumph of long-running West End musical proportions. The Oxford Revue, one of my reasons for being there, had an equally jolly time. Audiences were medium-sized and appreciative, except on the day when our venue seemed to have been taken over by a mother-and-toddler outing and I had to brandish a sex-toy at a front row that seemed to be composed entirely of primary school children.
So Oxford theatre, on the whole, didn't humiliate itself up north. Though as I say, I'm no authority on the subject. When waiting to crash through my stand-up comedy set in the final of Channel Four's viciously named 'So You Think You're Funny?' competition, I sat in the dressing-room with eight other trembling comics, desperately affecting a Geordie accent and denying that I'd ever been south of Birmingham.
But I had no reason to be ashamed. Students lost money, dignity, and virginity, yet every show completed its run, no-one was ever too drunk to perform and I've seen so much stand-up comedy that I may never laugh again.
We couldn't hope for anything more.
6th Oct 2004