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Three Parallel Places is an ambitious new piece of writing by Hannah Chilve-Vaughan which, through its winning central performance, manages to capture the spirit of the itinerant classical figures by which it was inspired. The premise of the play is that three parallel places – Earth, Egalitaria and Autocratia – exist, and each act of […]
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Presenting a play entirely in Greek to a modern audience might seem like an extraordinary task, but through the interplay of choreography, music, and outstanding individual performances, this production of Euripides’ Bacchae carries it off effortlessly. The Oxford Greek Play is steeped in tradition, occurring every three years at the Oxford Playhouse, and yet for […]
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Mansfield College has announced in a press release that Dame Maggie Smith, English actress, is to be conferred with an Honorary Fellowship of the college on the 20th October. Smith will then be in conversation with the Principal of Mansfield, talking about her life and career. The conferment and subsequent talk will mark the beginning […]
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Plays are performed in places, and the effect that seemingly obvious fact can have on the play can sometimes be palpable. In the case of Cosmic Arts’s strong, new performance of Shakespeare’s Caesar, place seems to have an extremely high level of prominence. The site of the play’s performance, the Keble O’Reilly Theatre, is located […]
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Of all the festivals set to grace fields across Britain this year, Wilderness (3rd-6th August) is arguably the most eclectic. Back for its sixth year, this four-day cultural extravaganza set in a protected woodland in the heart of the Cotswolds could be your Oxford “staycation” if you’re stuck in the Bod or lab over summer […]
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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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Netflix’s latest hit series, 13 Reasons Why, has been making waves since its release on 31st March. Adapted from a YA novel of the same name, the show quickly became the platform’s ‘most-tweeted-about’ series of all time, despite (or perhaps thanks to) its coverage of dark subject matter – something that we will discuss later. […]
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My one memory of The Archie Show consists of sitting in front of the TV as a child while my dad was watching old music videos. ‘Sugar, Sugar’ came on. The track, released for the show in 1969, played to a scene reminiscent of classic Scooby-Doo, complete with an anthropomorphic dog and goofy teenagers (albeit […]
Continue ReadingBlavatsky’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 […]
Continue ReadingFlo Read graduated from Oxford last year, and has written numerous acclaimed plays which have been performed both nationally and internationally; Twin Primes won Best Production and Best Writing at the 2015 Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS) New Writing Festival, and Cold Warm went to the Edinburgh Fringe last year. She chats with Megan Husain […]
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This adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel ‘Frankenstein ‘s both emotionally gripping and beautifully put together. Nick Dear’s script is engaging and transports the gothic story to modern day issues of social ostracisation and the nature of love. The play opens dramatically with Frankenstein’s Creature, a repulsive and terrifying figure, writhing out of an […]
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A Clockwork Orange is a challenging piece to adapt to stage, but it is tackled in an innovative way in this bold and captivating piece. From the very beginning of the play we are plunged into a world of violence and confusion. Greeted by a creepy Alex and his unnerving droogs, the audience is on […]
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Megan Husain interviews Jonny Danciger, the director, and Gerard Krasnopolski, the lead actor playing Alex in a production of A Clockwork Orange. So what drew you both towards A Clockwork Orange? G: So I’ve always been a fan of the book, I studied it at secondary school and I’ve been attracted to the way it’s got […]
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‘I’m like a walking corpse’ Ibsen isn’t known for his cheery plays. Yet ‘Ghosts’, on at the BT studio until Saturday, is something else altogether. It’s fascinating, disturbing, deeply complex, yes: these are all Ibsen characteristics. But with syphilis, near-incest, and euthanasia the subject-matter, along with Ibsen’s favourite, oppressive moral codes, ‘Ghosts’ is intense stuff. […]
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Abi Morgan’s Splendour is a chilling tale of violence and oppression in a country on the brink of revolution. Set in the opulent home of an unnamed dictator and his wife, the play follows four women as they await the absent dictator for his portrait sitting; the same scenes are repeated over and over from […]
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Antigone is the latest in a series of Greek tragedies put on in the New College Cloisters and directed by David Raeburn. His artistic vision and sense of exactly how he wanted to convey the original text were evident throughout. This year’s play followed on nicely from last year’s Oedipus Tyrannus, for those who had […]
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People who say Oxford is no laughing matter are very much not the target audience of The Oxford Revue and Friends, Saturday night’s showcase for the city’s hottest up-and-coming comics. Also featuring appearances from the Leeds Tealights and the Cambridge Footlights, as well as hot new stand-up Phil Wang, the evening felt like a promise […]
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James Watts’ intense production promises to blow the dust off this 19th century classic. Using Eyre’s recent translation of the text, which abandons stilted period language for a striking modern tone, he’s opted for a minimalist approach to throw all the attention onto the story. Free from awkward Victoriana and cumbersome language, the play here […]
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This year’s Trinity Lawns Play marked the return of Megan Slattery to the director’s chair, who on this occasion was accompanied by Bishan Morgan. As someone who had not previously seen Much Ado About Nothing, I was anxious that I would find it difficult to trace the contours of the plot and language. But that […]
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