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Image description: Paper shopping bags against mint background with the title ‘Checking out’ above. Checking Out produced by Orange Script Production and written by William Heath is styled as a ‘comedy-drama which follows the beginnings of the unlikely relationship between larger-than-life, mid-forties shop assistant Julie and recently-widowed octogenarian Elsie’. It is, however something much more […]
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Image Description: A scene from the production featuring two actors either side of a clock face Transported into a sixteenth-century erudite set consisting of eight old bookshelves, each tightly packed with ancient books of various sizes, a singular wooden desk with a matching chair, and a large blackboard detailed with complex equations and sketches, the […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮✮ On the night of the 12th August, I went with a hey-ho in the wind and the rain to the Old Schools Quad of the Bodleian Library to be immersed in this effervescent and exhilarating production. The night was ideal: we entered to the sound of a storm and the shipping forecast, which […]
Continue ReadingThe trouble with tackling a Shakespeare play is that every audience member is going to come to see your production with a very specific idea of how they think it should be done – the ‘proper’ way. These plays have been interpreted and reinterpreted so many times that thinking of something that hasn’t been done […]
Continue ReadingNew OUDS Secretary Madeleine Perham has a storied history in drama. Involved with Stagecoach (a London-based theatre company) since the tender age of 4, Maddy’s first passion was acting, eventually graduating from ‘dancing sunflowers’ to Bertolt Brecht. Coming to Oxford with the intention of becoming a student journalist, directing wasn’t high up on her list […]
Continue ReadingMany drama productions across Oxford decide to ‘plug’ their latest shows with filmed trailers. These range from downright surreal to incredibly intriguing, and, with the end of the calendar year rapidly approaching, it seems like an appropriate time to look back and pick the invariable highs and lows of what was ultimately quite a creative […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to What’s On Stage?, our new weekly update showcasing the editors’ picks for what to see in Oxford each week. This week: 1st week! Term has begun in earnest. To our newcomers, welcome! To our old hands, welcome back! There is a time for speech-making, but this is a written article. Tuck in. Let’s start […]
Continue ReadingYou’ve got the tightly-buttoned shirt, and the black-rimmed glasses. You do an arts subject. You are so close. But if you really want to make it as a thesp, we’ve got a few simple pointers to help. Let us present our beginners’ guide to the curious world of Oxford theatre… 1. Find your niche. Obviously, […]
Continue ReadingTo start with: why are you holding these play-readings? Mainly to raise the profile of these plays in Oxford. There aren’t enough student productions here of plays written by women and I thought a good way to tackle to this would be to hold some relaxed readings, and show that these plays exist, and more […]
Continue ReadingThe Oxford drama scene in 1958 was marked by the return of graduate Peter Dews, then a director for BBC Midlands, to direct an open-air production of Henry V in the Madgalen College grounds. For the leading role he chose Patrick Garland, a first-year student at St Edmund Hall reading English. The casting of a […]
Continue ReadingI approached the White Rabbit on a balmy Thursday evening with a little trepidation for the first instalment of Plays in the Pub. The new OUDS initiative is a way to give plays written by women a much needed airing – a very good idea – but I must admit I was scared. Reading aloud […]
Continue Reading2012 marks fifty years since St Catherine’s became a college and this momentous occasion was celebrated in true Oxonian style: with a series of lectures delivered by prestigious alumni and guests. One of the discussion panels commemorated and explored St Catz links with the arts, in particular theatre and television, and brought together some well-known […]
Continue ReadingOxford! London! Stratford! Guildford! Japan! No, this is not the plan of a badly constructed emergency gap year, but the erratic route along which the Oxford University Dramatic Society is taking its impressive production of Much Ado About Nothing. I joined them in London and was tickled by what I saw. The setting is Sicily […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to Oxford, and to one of the most vibrant student drama scenes in the country. We put on up to 80 shows a term here, ranging from the 50 seat Burton Taylor Studio to the over 600 seat Oxford Playhouse, from the crypts of Oxford Castle to the college gardens. The brilliant thing about […]
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