Review: Play & That Time
I arrived at the Burton Taylor Studio yesterday evening with a mind-set of curiosity and, quite honestly, scepticism. For Samuel Beckett’s minimalist short plays, Play and That Time are ambitious;...
View ArticleReview: The Oxford Revue and Friends
A packed Oxford Playhouse played host on Saturday night to the Oxford Revue and their friends – talented Oxfordian performers, the Cambridge Footlights and the professional comedian (and Oxonian), Ivo...
View ArticlePreview: OULES’ Robin Hood
We all know the story of Robin Hood: steals from the rich, gives to the poor, and saves Maid Marian from the evil clutches of Prince John. But what would happen if Marian didn’t want to be saved? This...
View ArticlePreview: Twelfth Night at Oriel
The end of this Trinity term sees two college garden productions of Twelfth Night. Oriel’s, playing from Tuesday to Thursday of 8th week, follows hot on the heels of Wadham’s in 7th week. Yet, not only...
View ArticlePreview: Stereotypist
An hour-long show written, directed and performed by one person could easily be tedious. Unless, of course, that person is Dom O’Keefe. Back from a year abroad in Vienna, the 3rd year student has...
View ArticleReview: Yesterday
Having never been to the Burton Taylor before, I’ll admit to finding the intimacy of the place slightly confronting. Especially since for the opening night of Yesterday, a musical with an all-female...
View ArticlePreview: Pentecost
‘Pentecost’ is a political play where a discovered mural has the potential to change the entire way we conceive Renaissance history. A spanner is thrown in the academic proceedings, however, when...
View ArticleReview: Hamlet
Shakespeare’s most psychological play is modernised effectively by James Watt’s visceral and intense production at the O’ Reilly Theatre, rich with psychological insight into its preoccupation with the...
View ArticleReview: Playhouse Creatures
Playhouse Creatures by April de Angelis is a show played by five actresses playing five actresses. Directed by Charlotte Vickers, the point of the performance seemed to be performing performance....
View ArticleReview: String
The String is definitely the thing… If String – a new piece of writing by Lauren Jackson – does anything, it stimulates conversation and debate. Leaving the Burton Taylor after the show I was...
View ArticleReview: The Oxford Imps
They say that comedy is all about the timing. In which case the decision that the Imps should perform their weekly show on a Monday night is a canny one indeed; early enough in the week that the...
View ArticlePreview: Spring Awakening
Combining a cathartic rock score with plotlines dealing with everything from sexual repression to suicide and incest, any director taking on Spring Awakening has a serious task on their hands. However,...
View ArticleReview: Pentecost
An assembly of asylum seekers from many different parts of the world has arrived at the border of ‘Our Country’, a small Eastern European nation standing at the gateway of Western Europe. They have...
View Article‘I love making strangers laugh’: An Interview with the Oxford Imps
Talking to the Oxford Imps’ producer, Harry Houseman, I can’t help feeling I’m getting a private performance. Though quieter and more thoughtful than his stage persona, Houseman retains the same energy...
View ArticleReview: Not about heroes
Before I begin, I must state one thing: this play, Not About Heroes, is one of the best I have seen in Oxford this year. Performed at the Jacqueline du Pre Auditorium and tucked away in St Hildas, this...
View ArticleReview: Breathing Corpses
This is a play of polarity. Reality jostles with fiction as the audience navigates the set, which is formed of “rooms” delimited by cardboard boxes. In the centre there is pile of these boxes,...
View ArticlePreview: Spring Awakening
Combining a cathartic rock score with plotlines dealing with everything from sexual repression to suicide and incest, any director taking on Spring Awakening has a serious task on their hands. However,...
View ArticleReview: Dart
DART is a book-length poem by Alice Oswald, which is based on three years worth of recorded conversations with people who live and work on the River Dart. The result is a work that takes on the...
View ArticleReview: Spring Awakening
Spring Awakening is a musical that follows the sexual unearthing of adolescents in a conservative context, communicating the risks that accompany treating the subject as taboo. A cohort of boys and...
View ArticlePreview: The Changeling
Having recently finished her year abroad on a directing course at the St Petersburg State Theatre Academy, Charlotte Day has returned bursting with directorial ideas. She tells me that all through her...
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