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✮✮✮ In the first 10 minutes, I became terribly worried that I would be unable to write a review. I knew Replay was the product of an intelligent, albeit wacky, mind, but it felt incomprehensible. Therein lies its fault and wonder. In the shortest and simplest terms, Replay is about a peculiar relationship between Freya, […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ The cast of Big Brass initially makes a big joke about being amateur. The set of their Pilch studio show vaguely resembles a collection of washing lines; their entrance is a farce based around technical incompetence; a couple of sketches become parodies of their own form. Clearly the trio (clad in mismatched stripy t-shirts) […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ Chutney and Chips came to reinvent the canon, to shake up Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a cocktail of Bollywood dance and Oxford allusions – and then pour the whole thing out into a riotous combination of good humour, touching emotion, and communal festivity. It felt like the Indian community of Oxford was […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮ Set in the height of the roaring twenties, The Great Gatsby has always been a favourite for adaptations in spite of it being a notoriously hard novel to put on stage or screen. However, Dominic Pollard’s slick, fun production combats this problem with intelligent directorial choices. The story follows the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby’s […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮ ‘A Night of the Absurd’ may not be the most comforting way to spend an evening but the experience is nevertheless very thought provoking. The evening, put on by Pembroke College Music and Drama Society, consists of two short absurdist plays: ‘The Misunderstanding’ by Albert Camus and ‘No Exit’ by Jean-Paul Sartre. ‘The Misunderstanding’ […]
Continue ReadingGODS Recently interviewed in this section, Michael Grandage’s West End season has just picked up 4 WhatsOnStage awards, including ‘Best Director’ for Grandage himself. Coincidence? I think not. So, who’s next? CIRCLE The Royal Academy of Dance’s journal Dance Gazette this week published a survey in which ballet company directors revealed the full extent of their (and the […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ Noel Coward’s Semi-Monde running at the Oxford Playhouse this week, is a delightful romp through the opulence and extravagance of Paris in the roaring twenties. Beneath a façade of calculated politesse is a world of bitching, gossip, and scandal, appealing to the secret voyeur within each member of the audience. We watch with mingled […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮ It’s the late 1980s, Cold War tensions are running high, and chess grandmasters “The American” in all-white and “The Russian” in all-black are meeting head-to-head across a chessboard. Two proud, bright flags adorn either side of the stage, the Stars and Stripes and Hammer and Sickle, facing off across the checkered monochrome between them. […]
Continue ReadingThe Hilary Revue Burton Taylor Studio 4th week ✮✮✮✮✮ Hahahahahahaha. I wish that could be my review. This is funny. Go. Perhaps you need a little more information before spending your fiver. Fine. For those of you for whom this opening line (or sheer emphasis by repetition: hahahahahahaha) isn’t illuminating enough, here goes. With Family […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ 1/2 Stephen Sondheim’s musical Sweeney Todd tells the tale of a deranged barber on his quest for revenge; together with an equally disturbed widow and a socially awkward sailor, they embark on a journey full of love, deaths, and crude puns. A Milk and Two Sugars Production puts on a promising reprisal of the […]
Continue ReadingThere’s no denying that The Great Gatsby is enjoying more popularity than it ever has since its publication. The Baz Luhrmann adaptation last summer wasn’t so much a film as a cultural event (US media covered it breathlessly, right down to the production of the soundtrack) and perhaps marked the apotheosis of the worldwide Gatsby […]
Continue ReadingThe Imps 10th Anniversary The New Theatre 13 February ✮✮✮✮✮ I talked to one of the newest IMPs, Francessca Evans, a 1st year at St Anne’s College the day before the show. What IMP-spired you to join? I’d done improvisation at school and at weekends, but it was largely unstructured and unfocused. I saw the stand […]
Continue ReadingWhen The Oxford Student first asked me to interview the writers and performers behind Big Brass, a new sketch comedy show, I had no idea that I would be introducing the article with this insipid anecdote. But as I later discovered, I am writing these very words right now. Nick Davies, Barney Iley, and David […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ Cardboard Menagerie present Simon Corble’s much revised adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at the Keble O’Reilly this week, featuring a fantastic set of specially designed puppets. The audience travels to medieval England to follow the adventures of one of King Arthur’s young knights – Sir Gawain, in an adventure that brings […]
Continue ReadingSt John’s are nice guys. What is so odd about this production of Chess is the contrast between the Cold-War-chess-match-turned-love-triangle tension portrayed on stage and the sense of camaraderie between the team off in the wings and down in the seats below as they rehearse. Third-year producer Francis Goodburn tells me it is his ‘good-bye […]
Continue ReadingC**t. I feel my toes curl at the sheer aggressiveness of those four letters. It is one of those insults that when spoken to a woman can feel more intensely jarring than when spoken to a man; but why? The rehearsed reading of 12 Angry Women is a linguistic experiment: a jury of 12 women […]
Continue ReadingSmiles pinned on their faces and chocolate cupcakes raised aloft, the circle of twentysomethings in matching shirts posed for photo after photo in front of the Clarendon Building. These are the Oxford Imps—Oxford’s best-known improvisational comedy troupe, who, on February 13th will celebrate their 10th anniversary with a special alumni performance at the New Theatre. […]
Continue ReadingGods This column (again) whose deep critical insights have attracted coverage on a national scale. This week’s Guardian online theatre editorial is ‘In Praise of… Winging It’. That’s right, in praise of me. Circle Dame Angela Lansbury, aged 88, returns to the stage this week in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. Having debuted back in 1944, […]
Continue ReadingHuz·zah (hə-zä′) interj: Used to express used to approval or delight Despite this being its fifth installment in Oxford, I knew very little about the Huzzah Comedy Night that had me Jericho-bound on Tuesday evening. To my approval and delight, what was on offer that night was a wonderfully bizarre mix of performances that all varied […]
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