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Image description: bronze reclining satyr figure The art and artefacts of Pompeii radiate life and death in this Ashmolean exhibition. AD79: the eruption of Vesuvius marked the end of the lives of the Pompeiians. The rediscovery of the city in the 18th century marked the beginning of what could be argued to be a new […]
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Everything seems to be going rather well for Brandon Paak Anderson, known by his stage name of Anderson .Paak. Having recently played a sold-out show at Alexandra Palace, received a Grammy for best rap performance for his track ‘Bubblin’, and charted at 11 on the US Billboard 200 with his latest album, Oxnard, there seems […]
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In true Luddite fashion, I have tended to prefer art where I can see a clear and realistic depiction of life; what is more impressive than the ability to capture a fragment of life with such clarity that you can hardly distinguish it from a photograph? Nevertheless, I was intrigued by the spam I had […]
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Today I’m a very lucky man writing about a very unlucky man. I’m lucky for seeing the Tate Britain’s Van Gogh and Britain before it opened. It’s an extraordinary exhibition, worth every penny. The unlucky man needs no introduction. Vincent Van Gogh is the quintessential tortured artist. Imaging him now, you’ve an an image of […]
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As a consumer, I am the disloyal type. I buy own brand, whatever’s cheapest; I latch onto other people’s accounts and do not mourn when I am eventually flicked away by a change of password; I don’t keep up with any TV shows and scale the New Statesman paywall each week via numerous incognito tabs, […]
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Think back to your favorite childhood films–the ones you could always be caught watching in the living room, the ones you could quote by heart and see vividly in your mind before you went to sleep at night. Were they action-packed, fantastical, comedic? Why did you like them? Was there a point when you suddenly […]
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With the chills of British winter in full force, the cinema should have a prime position in your weekly schedule. Our love for the cinema has frequently translated into the worlds of movies themselves, with main characters attending the pictures during their journeys. The closed-off space has been utilised to create sinister, tense and foreboding […]
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As Oscar Wilde declared in his preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey, ‘All art is quite useless’. Wilde’s statement falls on deaf ears in Dan Gilroy’s tale of pretentious art dealers and material greed. After taking paintings from the apartment of a deceased artist, Josephina (Zawe Ashton) is cajoled by boss Rhodora (Rene Russo) […]
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In September 1980, 19-year-old Robert Shafran arrived for his freshman year at Sullivan County Community College in upstate New York. Immediately, he was greeted by classmates all around campus: “Hey, Eddy!” they said. “Glad to see you back, Eddy!” Shafran was baffled. “I’m like, my name’s not Eddy. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” […]
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CAKE Night, a brand new scratch night organised by Oxford students Anushka Chakravarti and Bea Udale-Smith, was an event that exuded cheerfulness and energy. Cocooned in Summertown’s North Wall Arts Centre, a rather miserable walk in the rain was well worth the intimate, relaxed geniality and entertainment. The sketch-show setup made for delightfully easy viewing […]
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When I first saw the trailer for the four-part Netflix original, Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, one sentence put me off. In Bundy’s own voice, “I am looking for an opportunity to tell the story as best I can” makes it ominously clear that this is Ted’s moment, his last chance at […]
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This should have been an excellent production. The sets were wonderful, the costumes spectacular and the cast gave it their all. But we just couldn’t hear them for most of the performance. In the first scene, I hoped it was a glitch that would be fixed but when the problem persisted into the second half, […]
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‘Fame’, conceived and developed by David de Silva and directed by Nick Winston, is on for four nights at the New Theatre on George Street. If musical theatre at its most explosive is your thing, definitely go: the show is a hyperactive extravaganza of dance and song, bounding through two hours of dynamic performance with […]
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Pirandello’s Henry IV is student drama at its very best. At an hour long in the small, cosy bowels of the Burton Taylor Studio its unassuming scale allowed for a far greater depth and focus in what was probably only around three weeks of rehearsals. Packed with Stoppardian wit and uncomfortable, confrontational truths I really […]
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We sat down to watch Eat Your Heart Out unsure of what to expect. We knew the play would be about eating disorders, and so it’s unexpectedly funny start was a pleasant surprise. The opening scene was clever, with the actors creating their own sound effects and swaying from side to side conveying the movement […]
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The Only Way Is Suffrage, a new play from Charlotte Delaney, writer-in-residence at Oxford Women in Humanities, has run for four nights at the Burton Taylor Studio. Commemorating the recent centenary of the 1918 Representation of the People Act, Delaney presents an hour-long interrogation of the relationship between women’s suffrage and social justice. This play […]
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Set during the dawn of the 20th century, Colette follows the true story of French author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. The film begins with Colette (Keira Knightley) marrying Willy (Dominic West), and him drawing her away from her rural beginnings and into the bustling city life of Paris. Here she is encouraged to express her talents as […]
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Yorgos Lanthimos’s excellent new film The Favourite is a bodice-ripper of a different sort. Gone are the breathy declarations love, replaced instead by absent-minded hand jobs and filthy jokes. Within the confines of a profoundly sordid royal household, we are treated to a spectacle of social climbing of the most devious sort. At times hilarious […]
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At its heart, Doctor Who is a serial, and the standalone episodes this season have been by far the highlight. ‘Rosa’, the first with the Doctor back at full strength, has much of the feel of a 50s period piece as well as a sci-fi, and isn’t afraid to tackle heavy issues of race, through […]
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