director Archives – The Oxford Student

Oxfordshire NHS Trust appoints first Winter Director

2nd October 2018 Jafar Cain

Image Credit: ceridwen (CC-BY-SA/2.0) In response to the crises of previous years Oxfordshire NHS Trust has announced it is appointing a Winter Director to oversee coordination of care and health services through the winter period. The Trust is one of the first in the UK to create such a position and it hopes this new […]

Profile: Susanna White

3rd July 2017 Tara SnellingLeave a Comment

BAFTA and Emmy-winning director Susanna White has worked with the best dramatic talent offered by British drama, from Sherlock’s Benedict Cumberbatch to Downton Abbey’s Maggie Smith. From BBC serials such as Bleak House and Jane Eyre, the HBO series Generation Kill, and feature film Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang, her filmography and career is […]

Mary Harron: directing the undirectable

10th May 2015 Beth LambertLeave a Comment

It’s hard not to feel depressingly boring when you interview Mary Harron. She’s incredibly rock’n’roll, wearing leather trousers at 50 which I can’t pull off at 20, and confidently moves from talking about her childhood spent on film sets (her first step-mother was scouted by Stanley Kubrick) to Christian Bale’s “bionic” ability to sweat on command.

Director Vicky Jewson: ‘How often do you see a real female action hero?’

29th April 2015 Thomas BannatyneLeave a Comment

Oxford is in Vicky Jewson’s blood. Born in the John Radcliffe Hospital, she has lived in or around the city for most of her life. For her first film, Lady Godiva, the streets of Oxford doubled for Coventry. Her second, Born of War, uses Oxford more explicitly. A local girl, who struggles to fit in […]

Remembering Mike Nichols, 1931-2014

3rd December 2014 Anthony MaskellLeave a Comment

Incontrovertible directorial legend of film, television, and theatre, Mike Nichols, has died at the age of 83. This was a director who had to his name an Academy Award, four Emmy Awards, nine Tony Awards, a Golden Globe and the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, among numerous others.

Interview Ramin Gray: “There is some delicious irony in turning up without any actors”

10th October 201413th October 2014 Marcus LiLeave a Comment

After a stint at the Edinburgh Fringe, Ramin Gray’s production of Blind Hamlet is now touring around Europe. The play that uses audience participation, no actors and audio recordings of the writer, Nassim Soleimanpour, has been called a “ground-breaking” piece of theatre. As a linguist yourself, having read Arabic and Persian at Oxford, and, of […]

From ‘First Kiss’ to ‘Undress Me’ – awkwardly juggling science and Cyrus

14th July 201414th July 2014 Thomas BarnettLeave a Comment

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKZa-Kb4Nng] Perhaps I am revealing myself as a cynic, but Tatia Pilieva’s ‘First Kiss’ (a video of ten pairs of strangers sharing a kiss) was, as the tender examination of romance it was purported to be, pretty excruciating. The “beautiful moments [that] took place when nothing was happening”, in the words of Pilieva, […]

Easy Access: Chatting to Claire Dowie

31st October 20131st November 2013 Charlotte GoodmanLeave a Comment

Claire Dowie has beef with theatre. A veteran director, writer and performer, she is renowned for her gut-punching plays: funny, visceral and intense, usually for solo performance, and always political. And yet she cannot stand the world of which she is usually considered a part. “You sit there in the audience and you’re watching these […]

The Shrew Must Go On: Kiss Me Kate at The Old Vic

23rd December 201223rd December 2012 Rebecca Hazel RoughanLeave a Comment

Brando meets Shakespeare: always a winning combination, surely. Rebecca Hazel Roughan lets us know if Trevor Nunn’s 1940’s musical take on The Taming of the Shrew toes the line. As an English undergrad, any excuse to watch reworked Shakespeare is greeted gladly. This season, the all-female Julius Caesar seems to be the pinnacle of sophistication, […]

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

23rd July 201227th July 2012 Francis Blagburn

Gotham City is not in peril. It is a strange and unfamiliar opening to Nolan’s third and final piece in his Batman trilogy. The city so familiar with war is enjoying peacetime; “pretty soon we’ll be clamping down on overdue library books” quips Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s rookie cop. Fortunately for an audience who expect IMAX action, […]