Review: The Master and Margarita
From the outset, The Master and Margarita signals itself as an experience: a bold, immersive spectacle. To rework a lengthy, densely-plotted novel onto a ninety-minute play requires a focused...
View ArticlePreview: Rendezvous
Rendezvous: it’s a new play written and directed by Anthony Maskell. The premise is a simple one; a man (no name is given, he is simply called First) arrives at an interview ready for ‘the opportunity...
View ArticleReview: Lashing Through the Snow
I never thought of gargoyles as particularly musical creatures. Fortunately, Oxford University’s own acappella group is out to disprove prejudice against mythical creatures with their most recent...
View ArticleReview: The Changeling
The Changeling is a gruesome Jacobean tragedy oozing blood, lust and sin. It stars Beatrice Joanna, who longs to marry dashing nobleman, Alsemero, despite being already engaged to Piraqcuo. Desperate...
View ArticleReview: ONLIFE
Imagine Black Mirror as written by Samuel Beckett. Dark, clever and deeply emotional, ONLIFE tells the story of one man struggling to deal with modern technology. But while it displays a lot more tech...
View Article‘The Spaces Between Words’: fifty years of Pinter’s ‘Homecoming’
Just over 50 years ago Pinter’s The Homecoming opened at London’s Aldwych Theatre. After years of criticism for his absurdist style, this was the play that not only was considered by Pinter’s closest...
View ArticleTHARK: A Preview
Farces are perhaps the hardest of all plays to perform successfully; how does a cast and director balance comic timing, ridiculous lines and quick interchanges while making the script intelligible and,...
View ArticleThe Fastest Clock in the Universe – A Review
Having read about ‘The Fastest Clock in the Universe’ before I’d come to Oxford, I was aware that the play was designed to shock and provoke audience reaction. The second in Philip Ridley’s ‘East End...
View ArticleRENT – A Review
One might think that Rent, a musical primarily about AIDs victims and starving artists in ‘90s New York City, is a drama worlds away from the dreaming spires. Yet after witnessing this world recreated...
View ArticleNoose – A Review
Since last week’s show at the Burton Taylor Studio, a relatively small change had been made to the arrangement of the audience seating, but it was the first thing that interested me about ‘Noose’....
View ArticleHeavy Petting – A Review
The return of something resembling a legend, an institution, was heralded by the confidence of the classic opening and closing tracks, among them Stevie Wonder and David Bowie. This is Heavy Petting....
View ArticleTHARK – A Review
As we waited for Thark to start (it took only a few minutes longer than expected), regaled by smooth jazz played by Remy Oudemans and Sam Adamson, I dropped some great eaves (“One of my dreams,...
View ArticleConstellations – A Review
Set in the round, coloured light is refracted through suspended hexagons onto the small stage. It’s intimate and atmospheric, a perfect reflection of the play itself. Focussing on the relationship...
View ArticleArtsy or Fartsy? What does YOUR college do for drama?
I was in a café with my fellow section editor, Chloe, last week, telling her how I’d become a part of the Arts Committee at my college. To which, Chloe replied, “What’s that?” I was aware not all...
View ArticleAmadeus – A Preview
Most of us know the film Amadeus by Mološ Forman, but few of us are aware that the film is adapted from a play. Regrettably enough. The scenes from the film that we all have in mind are, indeed, given...
View ArticleHyperdrive – An Interview with Adam Mastroianni
We’re always told to turn our phones off in the theatre. But what if that was the entire point? Next week the Simpkins Lee Theatre will play host to Hyperdrive, a new experimental show from the Oxford...
View ArticleAmadeus – A Review
I love obsessive rivalries. I love nemeses. I love characters so filled with hate that their enemies come to mean something much more than they are. For Antonio Salieri, court composer and protagonist...
View ArticleTriptych – A Review
Josh Dolphin, George McGoldrick and Will Rees make up the 3 constituent parts of the Oxford Revue’s Triptych, their so-called ‘Show with Sound’. So named, and walking into a darkened room with a laptop...
View ArticleCoriolanus – A Preview
Walking in on the rehearsals of Coriolanus, directed by Lucy Clarke, I found it hard to believe that the cast still had a week and a half to go before the performance. We don’t often actually...
View ArticleRosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – A Review
There’s a hum of excitement as the audience take their seats awaiting the Armchair Theatre Company’s production of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead. The marketing for this show has...
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