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The science of previewing is no more a science than augury. Especially if, like Gabe Day, the play has profited from two rehearsals only. A wrinkled, newborn baby is dangled before the soothsayer; prophetic words must be proclaimed. Gabe Day, the brainchild of Rory Platt from Trinity, is thankfully not still-born but very much alive […]
Continue ReadingIn an out-of-context quote from her bestselling series, Dannika Dark’s character Knox steamily goes: “I think we’re both bullshitting here, you ever play that card game?” Well, Cameron Cook’s game is poker. And there’s no bullshit in the fact that he’s holding all aces. In fact, he is the ace. In his directorial debut of […]
Continue ReadingLight and fun. This year’s Merton garden play brings the ludicrous frivolity of the 19th century nobility to life in a slick adaption of Boucicault’s play. The script itself, relying much on subtle echoes to Austin, Wilde and Shakespeare, may not be for everyone. But you don’t have to be a lover of the world […]
Continue ReadingThe Merchant of Venice is perhaps the most unsuitable play for an outdoor Shakespeare festival. How does one capture the dark underbelly of city life on an English summer’s day surrounded by verdant pastures? Well, director Lucinda Dawkins’ answer was to start at eight and hope it gets dark in time for the trial scene. […]
Continue ReadingMuch like the title of the performance itself, the atmosphere at Keble O’Reilly Theatre on Thursday night seems at first really, really desperate. A bunch of people desperately waiting for an elating night; a presenter desperately trying his best to engage with the limited audience. Unfortunately, things don’t really change when the ‘poet’ Rhys Maliphant […]
Continue ReadingThe stage is set for what looks to be an unnerving tale. A single lamp suspended above a dark and dilapidated workshop, illuminating the presence of a tiny figure sat upright upon a crowded, wooden workbench. The moment you enter the darkened theatre you are at once thrown into the isolated disarray of Albert Grimlake’s […]
Continue ReadingLittle Shop of Horrors is a cult horror-comedy musical, somewhat in the vein of Rocky Horror, about a new breed of fly trap with a taste for human blood. Seymour Krelborn (Michael Coombs) finds a rare and exotic plant that instantly revives business at Mushnik’s florists shop, but the plant, named Audrey II, soon reveals […]
Continue ReadingToby Mather’s act is a performance that occupies a territory somewhere between theatre and comedy; it is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of highly original comedy that both amuses and intrigues. Mather assumes the persona of a melancholic middle class male, swigging from a bottle of claret, lamenting the woes of his private school upbringing, of […]
Continue ReadingTrinity Lawn’s Alice in Wonderland is not to be confused with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which is quite a different story altogether. It is not a straightforward adaptation of either of Carroll’s Alice books, borrowing from both but pitching the heroine as a peculiarly childish sixteen year old making her debut. Tom Elliot’s play centres […]
Continue ReadingNatalie York’s production of one of Sophocles’ tragically underperformed plays, Philoctetes, fails to capture most of what makes the original so engaging. The play as Sophocles wrote it is about Odysseus and Neoptolemus (Achilles’ son) who have been sent to fetch the injured Philoctetes, left on Lemnos before the start of the Trojan War because […]
Continue ReadingChristopher Marlowe’s most famous play, Doctor Faustus, sees the eponymous antihero sell his soul in a quest for power and knowledge. By the end of this performance I was almost willing to sell my soul for it not to have rained. Unfortunately for Christ Church’s unpolished production, the atmospheric setting of the grandeur of the Christ […]
Continue ReadingWe are intruding. Frank, Claudia and their son Andi are about to move to Canada, so we enter a kingdom of boxes standing metaphorically for all the hidden twists and turns about to be laid out in front of us. The set is held together by a battered door, which will turn into the silent […]
Continue ReadingA Duchess loves a Knight who is having an affair with the Duke’s niece, the Chatelaine. The Knight spurns the Duchess, who accuses him of adultery to the Duke. The Knight tells the Duke about his real affair, but the Duchess finds out and mentions it to the Chatelaine. The Chatelaine is heartbroken and decides […]
Continue ReadingFew topics heighten emotions and evoke hysteria as much as the mention of a missing child. Think of Madeleine McCann or Shannon Matthews – issues of parenting and child safety in middle-class Britain have never been more topical. Middle England tries to encapsulate all of these issues, but does so through an unrelenting focus on the […]
Continue Reading“Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” So goes the formula for story-telling proposed by the King of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It is advice which seems likely to be ignored by the team behind Oxford’s latest stage adaptation of the seminal book, which has […]
Continue ReadingDemons, devils, and black magic; Marlowe’s Faustus is no light-hearted comedy. It’s ambitious stuff for students to undertake, and the play’s grandiose themes and supernatural setting create a lot of potential for disaster. Thankfully, this production has a strong lead, careful and meticulous direction, and will be staged at the magnificent Christ Church cathedral gardens […]
Continue ReadingThe garden show is an Oxford institution; like punting or drinking at midday, it is part of that host of wonderful distractions that keeps us far away from the library during Trinity term. My first introduction to outdoor theatre in Oxford was New College MCR’s delightful production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it proved […]
Continue ReadingChekhov’s play The Seagull can easily be staged as a Puccini-esque 19th Century melodrama moving between affected solo arias and perfectly orchestrated chorus scenes (as the unfortunately successful 1898 production by Stanislavsky demonstrated). Luckily for Chekhov (and for us) Blanche McIntyre’s production makes none of these mistakes. At first sight, the play revolves around a […]
Continue ReadingThe programme features a pixellated, slightly out-of-focus jester – but there’s nothing fuzzy about this sketch show. On the contrary, it is razor-sharp and incredibly quick. The packed Burton Taylor (full to the extent that several theatregoers were turned away at the door) was testament to the group’s skilful advertising, and it soon became obvious […]
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