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A freezing Wednesday night in January felt like a fitting night to watch a show about an Italian prostitute’s constantly thwarted dreams. At least, that was the source material – Fellini’s screenplay for Nights of Cabiria – before it was sanitised for a Broadway audience in 1966 to become Sweet Charity. At the time, Cy […]
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On walking into the auditorium at the Old Fire Station, the aesthetic which greeted us was uber millennial feminism: fur coats, crop tops, fluffy cushions, flares, and lots and lots of pink. In this intimate space, our reflections gazing back at us on the mirrored wall, we were to watch HOTTER, Ell Potter and Mary […]
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The attention to detail in Hugh Tappin’s production of Skylight is remarkable. Stepping into the Burton Taylor Studio felt like walking into a ramshackle flat, complete with a shabby, tea-stained table, a working kettle, and a (slightly wobbly) front door. Skylight, with its naturalistic dialogue and low-key setting, calls for a thorough commitment to realism, […]
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The Oxford drama scene has nurtured some of the finest acting talent in Britain, the hallowed training ground of artists as varied as Hugh Grant, Rosamund Pike and Tom Hooper. It is a Serious Business. Legend has that one particular Oxford dramatics society has fostered the talents of both Rowan Atkinson and Oscar Wilde. Yet […]
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I walked into the Burton-Taylor Studio halfway through a run of the show. The cast continued with the performance without pause as I settled in, provoking the feeling that I’d stumbled into someone’s kitchen during an argument. Director Hugh Tappin informed me as we were walking in that this was a “pasta” run, rather than […]
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Oxford, Cambridge, Durham: an alliance (or rivalry) for the ages. Although the title of the evening was ‘The Oxford Revue and Friends’, the rivalry and tension between each university’s comedic troupes were clear in this one-off performance at the Playhouse. With three great groups determined to out-perform each other, all while emceed by a professional […]
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Once again, Jack Bradfield and Poltergeist Theatre prove that they’re cleverer than us. In the nicest possible way. Garden, Bradfield’s latest piece of new writing, takes everything that last summer’s xx had, and pushes it further: succinct wit, a diverse range of characters, engaging physicality and staging, and a plot hinging on a scientific/philosophical concept […]
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Avenue Q is a coming-of-age story with a twist: most of the characters are Sesame Street-style puppets. The latest show from Oxford Operatic Society, Avenue Q combines catchy songs and skilful puppetry in a funny, affectionate take on the struggles of leaving college and entering the adult world. The musical follows Princeton (Guy Grimsley), a […]
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When I arrived to watch a rehearsal of Garden, most of the cast were wearing plant pots on their heads. This, it turned out, was not a daring fashion statement, but an image which captured the essence of Jack Bradfield’s witty, heartfelt new comedy. Garden follows Elizabeth, a phytologist (plant scientist), and a group of […]
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Bringing a radio play to life on stage is no small task, especially so with a piece as well known and loved as Under Milk Wood. Hailed as the ‘greatest drama ever written for radio’ by the Telegraph, Dylan Thomas’ comic and poetic masterpiece invites the listener to spend a day in the company of […]
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After a stunted night out, five teenagers wait indefinitely for a train. With nothing to do but sit on the platform, they exchange memories – but the reminiscence is just badly disguised ridicule. Everyone is forced to partake, lest the mockery should fall onto you, and so they scramble and tear into one another, into […]
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As I watched the cast of Little Shop of Horrors perform at a tech rehearsal, I was nostalgic for a time I’ve never lived in. With the punchy girl-group dancing, the streetscape filled with optimism, the harmonising, and the young lovers, it was just plain fun. After seeing a mix of songs I was struck […]
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A climactic scene in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra ends with the lovers draped atop an Egyptian monument: one royal dead, one soon to be. Iqbal Khan’s Royal Shakespeare Company staging took this monumental image, and superimposed it on the entire production. It was a show of epic proportions, from its set of stately grandeur to […]
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Blavatsky’s Tower is a claustrophobic family drama. Leaving the Michael Pilch studio, it felt as if the apartment’s internal tensions had been taxed and strained for years, long before I ever walked in. Two of its four inhabitants are obsessive, blinkered theorists and three unable to leave. The confined, hemmed in studio space serves as […]
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The story of how Alexia Kirk, director of Dear Brutus, found the play is “one which no one ever believes. I was in a charity bookshop in Jericho about a year and a half ago and I saw this 1934 edition of Dear Brutus. I already loved J. M. Barrie, I started reading…it’s one of […]
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