Author: Matthew Davies

OUSU Council has overwhelmingly voted against a motion to drop support for next week’s national demonstration for free education, with only five members voting in favour. The demonstration, due to take place on Wednesday the 19th of November in central London, is being organised by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, the Student Assembly […]

Oxford students have responded angrily to the timing of a recent council by-election in Carfax ward, which saw a turnout of just 8.6%. The election was held on the 4th of September, when the vast majority of undergraduate students were away from Oxford for the summer vacation. According to the 2011 UK census, full-time students […]

On one end of the stage, a girl lies huddled on the floor. In another a couple hold hands in a vague show of affection. Working on a L-shaped stage, the cast of Let Your Hair Down shows an impressive versatility across the board, moving instantly into a complex world of realistic suffering or witty […]

✮✮✮✮ “Something ecstatic; something dramatic; something for everyone – a comedy tonight” are the words of the opening song to A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and they prove only too true. The show, put on by The Queen’s College’s Eglesfield Musical Society and directed by Lucy Wood, is a musical […]

Trinity term: a time of sun, picnics, and punts… it’s a shame you’ll probably be spending most of it in a musty old library somewhere. Still, you’ll want to make the most of what’s looking like a vintage crop of shows this Trinity, so here at Stage we’ve decided to shine a spotlight on some […]

Cheek by Jowl know how to put on a show. The company’s exhilarating production of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore which has been touring Paris, Sydney, New York, London and Madrid for two years is finally now back in the UK, and set to fill the Oxford Playhouse with blood, guts and incest in less […]

  It is with great regret that I have to announce the departure from this publication of F D Levin. A letter sent to the office this week cited ‘editorial ineptitude, censorship and resulting artistic frustration’ as the root causes of his resignation. Levin was considered to have the potential to be a great writer […]

✮✮ Brechtian ‘Epic Theatre’: it was a challenge from the start. In The Caucasian Chalk Circle Brecht created a play within a play in the complex world of post-revolutionary Grusinia. Auden’s scripted translation, complete with pithy ironies, jokes and musical interludes served as the framework for this production. The two stories are presided over by […]

✮✮✮ Lamorna Ash’s offering for the Oxford New Writing Festival delivers a powerful indictment of modern sexual politics – but considering its subject matter, the play feels remarkably chaste. Love Plus is a dystopian parable warning against the dangers of men’s desire for perfection, manifested in the titular ‘Love Plus’ programme – a living and […]

Student shows where the director has little idea what his actors are about to do on stage are something of a rarity. Devised Play One: Fear is such a show. The brainchild of a conversation between Rough-Hewn directors Tommo Fowler and Emma D’Arcy, the project eschews formalised, set scripts in favour of a collaborative creative […]

✮✮✮✮ When reincarnating something as famous as Strangers on a Train, it can be easy to fall into the trap of trying to reinvent every aspect of the production. Robert Allan Ackerman’s interpretation, however, revels in the history of this work. While more faithful in plot to Patricia Highman’s novel, from the second the curtain […]

✮✮✮ 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 […]

Originally set in sixteenth century Parma, Commensal’s production of ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore revives the Jacobean tragedy in the surroundings of modern-day London. Centred on a doomed love affair between two siblings, ‘Tis Pity is a rollercoaster ride of intense emotions, violence and brutality. Combining contemporary music from a live band, twenty-first entury props, […]

The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Bertolt Brecht’s brutal satire, morality play and modernist fairy-tale is currently undergoing treatment by ‘Screw the Looking Glass’, an imaginative and vital student theatre company. The play follows a poor girl, Grusha, who rescues a child from the chaos of war, and Azdak, a strange, messianic character, disillusioned with society and […]

“Do you get lonely?” Before the words had fully passed from my lips an emphatic answer came flying back, as Michael Grandage shifted noticeably forward in his chair: “Very lonely yes, it’s a lonely profession directing…you have to take all the responsibility, the flak. We’re a little bit like football managers, Artistic Directors; we have […]

Surprises abound in Semi-Monde, a delightfully dishonest comedy by Noel Coward on at The Playhouse this term. Concerned with the comings-and-goings of almost thirty characters at the Hôtel Ritz, Paris, Semi-Monde oozes 1920s excess and opulence. The numerous back-and-forths between the characters are pithy and charming, while the script often has several conversations going on […]

Gods This week dealt a terrible blow to theatre, film and various drug dealers, with Philip Seymor Hoffman dying from a heroin overdose. Selfless to his roles, regardless of their tolls, he had some good advice for you ambitious students: “I was young once, and I said, ‘Acting’s beautiful and I want that.’ Wanting it […]