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Travesties, by Tom Stoppard, is largely set in Zurich in the middle of the First World War. The turbulence of the period, reflected in a chaotic cast of characters swirling around British diplomat Henry Carr – a somewhat self-centred and unremarkable man, playing counterpoint to the larger-than-life figures of James Joyce, Tristan Tzara, and […]
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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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This production of Tennessee William’s ‘Summer & Smoke’, the first in the UK in ten years, is tastefully executed and does due justice to the work of a true master. The play charts the tumultuous relationship between Alma, a preacher’s daughter with a heart of gold, and John, a charming but morally ambiguous young doctor. […]
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There are two things that any British production of Singin’ in the Rain needs to do in order to succeed. The first is, like any production, to nail the song from which the film takes its name. The other is to not have the American accents sound completely awful. Judging by the preview, this production […]
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✮✮✮✮✮ You would be hard pressed to find a comedy blacker than Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman. It is a world in which brutal police interrogation precedes talk of itchy arses. Police interrogators squabble over whether or not to put the electrodes on. Extremes of innocence are pushed to extremes. The main character of the […]
Continue ReadingCheek 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 […]
Continue ReadingThe 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 […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ Noel Coward’s Semi-Monde running at the Oxford Playhouse this week, is a delightful romp through the opulence and extravagance of Paris in the roaring twenties. Beneath a façade of calculated politesse is a world of bitching, gossip, and scandal, appealing to the secret voyeur within each member of the audience. We watch with mingled […]
Continue ReadingSurprises 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 […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮ Running at just under 90 minutes, you’d expect that Filter’s production of Twelfth Night would kill off some Shakespeare purists, but, in a bold dramaturgical move, this Twelfth Night is as much about what cult creative company Filter decides to add in as about what they cut out. I’d estimate that about 70 minutes […]
Continue ReadingOne theatre group, two nights, six plays. Almost Random Theatre (ART) is barely twenty months old and has begun 2014 with a stomping start. On offer were six brand new pieces: four from the winners and runners-up of two playwriting competitions two plays by ART founder and producer Chris Sivewright. Sivewright’s School Assembly explores the […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ With the prizes and prestige of the original show combined with gritty themes of human existence and value, it takes a brave group to take on the play 100. But it is safe to say that is production is not going to disappoint. The plot initially seems simple – you must choose a memory […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ “Shepherd’s pie peppered with actual shepherd on top.” Probably the best line in any musical ever. It actually sums up the plot pretty neatly: Sweeney Todd, hard-done-by barber, finds a way with his landlord (hard-up purveyor of pies Mrs Lovett) to have his cake – perhaps pie here – and eat it too. Cannibalistic […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮ I come from California, and the first thing that comes to mind when faced with the prospect of an American musical in the UK is that the accents will be shocking. In order not to fidget all the way through a production of Mack and Mabel in south London last year, I had to convince myself the actors were […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮✮ I confess, I took my seat (classy Circle D27, cheers OxStu) in the Playhouse without having so much as glanced at the plot of Ghosts. A text from my dad insisting I book a ticket had catapulted me into a late Tuesday viewing of Ibsen’s critical magnifying glass on 18th-century morality. Too trusting on […]
Continue Reading✮✮✮✮✮ Arcadia by Tom Stoppard: ring any bells? Yeah, I imagined so. And not only because it’s one of the greatest plays of the 21st century, but also because it was performed three times within Oxford alone since January of this year. So, you’ll probably be dismissing the headline as yet another Oxford student company interpretation […]
Continue ReadingStrolling up Jowett’s Walk, bound for a preview of the upcoming Playhouse take on The Producers, I couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of dread. Previews are never the full shebang; nine times out of ten they’re poorly executed, and everything can feel a bit too rough-and-ready. And so, in discovering that the Michael […]
Continue ReadingThe Screw the Looking Glass production of Another Country earned the seal of approval from its playwright, Julian Mitchell, last night, almost certainly rendering my opinion worthless to cast and crew. However, to turn an old phrase, the show must be reviewed. Another Country examines the quintessential English public school in the wake of the […]
Continue ReadingThe Oxford Playhouse is soon to be transformed into an English public school, very much resembling Eton College in the 1930s, only a few years before the outbreak of World War Two. This is thanks to a decision by producer Edwina Christie and director Jessica Lazar to stage Julian Mitchell’s gem Another Country, the play […]
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