Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
I’m sure we all remember the pithy response that Georgia, in Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, is given as a reason for why she shouldn’t have dressed up as an olive to a fancy-dress party. “Boys don’t like girls for funniness”. Although a throwaway line in an admittedly sub-par noughties romcom, this nonetheless taps into […]
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It was a Saturday morning when I found myself sat waiting to preview The Oxford Revue’s Playhouse show playing on Monday 17th June. As I sat waiting for a fellow reviewer, I was told I would be privy to seeing a few sketches from the show. As I waited, all the comics were sat around […]
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Sizzling with chaotic, hilarious energy, ‘The Reunion’ promises to be an electric piece of theatre. Written, directed and masterminded by Tommy Hurst and Bernard Visser, the premise surrounds two funeral directors (satirically named Hearse and Cloak) attempting to piece together the story behind the death of a recently deceased big shot criminal Sebastian Coxcomb. This […]
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Ray Bradshaw introduces a new aspect to stand-up comedy with his show Deaf Comedy Fam. The two-time Scottish Comedian of the Year finalist tells his stories using both English and British Sign Language. The limited number of deaf students at Oxford presents a wider issue of inaccessibility for deaf people in society, including entertainment. Being […]
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When asked to review this evening of jazz from the Red Brick Jazz Sextet, and comedy from The Oxford Revue, I had to make a rather odd confession to the editors. “But I’m performing,” I explained awkwardly. Thankfully, performing a stand-up set amongst numerous others featured in an evening of mostly musical entertainment doesn’t actually […]
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Image description: Marlinksy Palace is the official ceremonial residence of the Ukrainian president. “Fake news”, the moniker applied to news stories of dubious accuracy and generally distributed with an eye to slander, has been a hot topic since Donald J. Trump was elected president of the US in 2016. The prevailing feeling has been that nefarious […]
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‘Every bit of this is of enormous nostalgia for me’ Ivo Graham says. ‘At Oxford I read the OxStu, and I applied with my friend and roommate Matt to be music editors…we didn’t get it and we carried that bitterness with us.’ I assure him that since the OxStu let me loose on the music […]
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Netflix’s new seasonal special, The Christmas Wedding Planner, received almost universally dire online reviews, with one viewer writing, ‘I created an IMDd account just to warn people what a waste of time awful movie this is. Absolutely horrible’. It is so bad that there has even been speculation that Netflix commissioned it purely to lure […]
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Comedy – perhaps more than any other genre – is cultural. Part of this comes from a shared comedic heritage. Brits know, inherently, that the phrase ‘This time next year, we’ll be millionaires!’ is rooted in classic British humour. Monty Python, Blackadder, Fawlty Towers and Peep Show form part of the canon of British entertainment, […]
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Image Credit: Pilot Boy Productions (CC BY-SA 4.0) This Friday at 2pm, Dave Chappelle and Jon Stewart will be speaking at the Oxford Union after their recent joint tour. Chappelle, the American comedian popularised by Chappelle’s Show, has recently received a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. Earlier this year, his comedy special Equanimity, produced in […]
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Image Credit: Steve Eason (CC BY 2.0) Note: the article that follows is a work of satire, and therefore should not be taken as factual Having complained about some British minorities’ inability to understand “English irony,” Jeremy Corbyn now intends to give a series of lectures on the different forms of British humour, the Office […]
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Dining Al Desko leaps forth with a gleeful nihilism, capturing the very worst of office life in the very best of ways. A comically tragic (or tragically comic?) exploration of high-pressure stress in the world of work, it is a production that succeeds in the difficult task of remaining grounded in a bleak reality while […]
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Brasenose presents ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, a transfixing production of Shakespeare’s most magical tale, staged in the beautiful New Quad for the college’s annual Arts Week. The performance has an airy touch, and a sense of genuine enjoyment underlies the play through the boundless energy of some astoundingly good actors, who shift seamlessly from scene […]
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Ruby Nicholson Interview The House if Improv, the creators behind the improvisational comedy show Death By Murder. With the Oxford imps usually dominating this niche scene, Jack Lawrence and Emma Hinnells talk through the ups and downs of putting on their murder mystery show. How long have you been rehearsing for? Jack: Probably about 6 […]
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(Spoilers ahead) Confusions… confusions? Sitting in the front row as the first of three one-act plays began to unfold in front of me, everyone on stage certainly seemed confused. Opening night nerves perhaps? Or more likely the beginning of a consistently engaging and hilarious portrayal of one of Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘greatest works’, or so I’m […]
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Hailed as ‘the funniest show in the West End’ by the Telegraph, A Comedy About a Bank Robbery certainly lives up to expectation. Set to a lush A Capella soundtrack and amidst dynamic physical theatre, this performance is an absolute standout. A Comedy About a Bank Robbery is Mischief Theatre’s latest contribution to the comedy […]
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The Oxford Revue, the university’s world-renowned comedy troupe, are attempting a feat we’ve never seen a student society attempt before – pulling off a West End show. The Oxford Revue: Funraiser is a fundraiser show that will be taking place for one night (and one night only) at the Leicester Square Theatre in central London […]
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The ‘intimate’ (cramped) Keble O’Reilly provided the perfect setting for the cast of The 39 Steps to begin their onslaught. An onslaught of gags, accents, costumes, tomfoolery and hysterics that is of course synonymous with the play about Richard Hannay, the “irredeemable” 30s chap who falls head-first into a farcical spy thriller. It was a […]
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It’s been a difficult year for the BBC. Not only do license-fee payers perhaps doubt the value of their contributions to the funding of the corporation, but ‘Auntie’ is even under pressure from its biggest stars for, of all the complex issues that could blight a major organisation, equal pay for men and women. Remarkably, […]
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