The Fairy Queen – A preview
Walking into a deserted Wadham first quad on a Monday evening, you’d have no idea that somewhere, squirrelled away in the bowels of a crammed performance space, 57 performers and various other crew...
View ArticleRhinoceros – A preview
As I sat down in the Pilch Studio, and the preview of Gruffdog Theatre’s Rhinoceros commenced, I was flabbergasted. Suddenly, as the cast swirled across the stage with endearing, yet stylish...
View ArticleThe House of Bernarda Alba – An interview
Jake is a second year student studying Spanish at Exeter College. We met at the very sociable hour of 8 o’clock at Exeter for breakfast. The House of Bernarda Alba, (La Casa de Bernarda Alba in...
View ArticleSweeney Todd – A review
When I was working as an usher at the English National Opera last year, I saw Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street a whole 12 times, which for some would probably be almost enough times to...
View ArticleAlter/Alter – A review
Iphigenia in Aulis is an intense play, one fraught with high tensions, emotional drama and fundamental ethical questions that face the audience and the actors at every turn. Beginning in the middle of...
View ArticleArcadia – A review
The detritus on a table slowly builds up, the focal point of one of the cleverest plays ever written. A young child (Thomasina, played by Tallulah Vaughan) ponders on the nature of entropy, on life and...
View ArticleShakespearean insults in everyday contexts
Sorrel’s guide to the top 10 Shakespearean insults and how to use them in your everyday life. “There’s small choice in rotten apples.” from Taming of the Shrew. When you can’t find a decent drinks...
View ArticleDoctor Faustus – A preview
Doctor Faustus, I have come to realize, is a deeply odd play, and not only because of its age. Poet Christopher Marlowe’s writing is, superficially, similar to Shakespeare’s, but it is, in a sense,...
View ArticleThe House of Bernarda Alba – A review
I went to the opening night of The House of Bernarda Alba at Cellar on Monday. I had never been to a play at Cellar, but apparently it happens on occasion. The House of Bernarda Alba is a play written...
View ArticleWoyzeck – A review
National society plays don’t seem to get much in the way of hype, at least not from the usual Oxford theatre outlets. This is a shame, because Woyzeck might be the best play the Burton-Taylor has seen...
View ArticleDr Faustus – A review
Dr Faustus is an eerie play, of that here is no doubt, and this production of it gave a masterclass in atmosphere. From the moment you step down into the Keble O’Reilly’s cemented and unforgiving space...
View ArticleMine – A review
Polly’s Teale’s poignant drama Mine is very much a play for today: not least because of its exploration of the pressures of modern motherhood, and its emphasis on middleclass guilt. It shows the...
View ArticleNo Exit – A preview
‘L’enfer, c’est les Autres’. Sartre’s heavily quoted – and often misunderstood – line ‘Hell is other people’ is at the core of the English version of his original ‘Huis Clos’, and, despite its...
View ArticleQueueue – A preview
The style of Queueue: A Coffee Shop Musical is best described as a kind of gentrified cyberpunk. A free-form, genre-mixing musical, Queueue unites some of the finest talent of the Oxford theatre scene...
View ArticleThe Oxford Revue and Friends – A preview
Most Playhouse productions are no laughing matter. Sitting comfortably at the top of the student theatre hierarchy, the Playhouse is a place for high production values and even higher brows. But in two...
View ArticleA streetcar named Desire – A preview
A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams is an iconic piece of 20th Century American theatre. Streetcar tells the story of Blanche Dubois who loses her home and is forced to leave...
View ArticleNo Exit – A review
Three characters, Inéz, Garcin, and Estelle, are in hell. And where is hell, you may ask? Hell turns out to be a stuffy “second empire drawing room” with no way out. There are no conventional devils,...
View ArticleFarenheit 451- A review
Biblioclasm. Libricide. Book-burning. These are all words that roll off the tongue trippingly. But this action, this destruction of books, a nightmare for any student, is a concrete, or rather ashy,...
View ArticleColin and Katya – A review
In the small, modern North Wall Arts Centre stands a large, buzzing swarm of thesps and arty types. Each sporting their own unique variation on the traditional indie look of edgy eyebrows, unexpected...
View ArticleA streetcar named Desire – A review
See this production: Tennessee Williams’ tight script still evokes laughs and trembles at the Keble O’Reilly in the hands of this assured cast and crew. The highlight is Mary Higgins’ Blanche; by turns...
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