Theatre

"Every play Caryl Churchill writes has revolutionised theatre."

Founding Fellas Productions have made an interesting choice in staging Carrie: The Musical at the Oxford Playhouse, which I watched in a dress rehearsal earlier this week. With its catastrophic production history (a book of Broadway failures is named after it), the musical is famously one of the biggest flops in theatre history.

"Emotions collide and coalesce to heart-stopping effect, reflecting the disturbing inevitability of the chaos caused when drugs and fear mingle."

Queen’s College needed a sassy, singing carnivorous plant. In drag.

There’s been a recent uptick in global awareness of the history of Northern Ireland. We can trace it back, roughly, to 2018. That’s when Lisa McGee’s hit TV series Derry Girls, which chronicles the tribulations of growing up in Derry during the Troubles, arrived on screens worldwide; and just like that, Northern Ireland became the object of cultural fascination.

May McEvoy reviews Somerville College Drama Society and Sunday Productions' Twelfth Night.

Sophie Magalhaes reviews Leah O'Grady's 'queer Dracula' at Michael Pilch Studio.

Everybody better beware: Little Shop of Horrors has arrived in Oxford.  The wacky musical tells the story of a meek florist, Seymour Krelborn, who finds...

"The production harnesses its idyllic, summery setting to explore the [...] ideals of love and courtship in a world dominated by gendered notions of how honour is achieved, and the use of deception as a means to an end."

"The popularity of Derry Girls [demonstrates] that shows like this, with a good balance of witty humour and colourful characters, family dynamics and psychological insights, are the perfect blend to watch."

"The woman who once vociferously defended the judicial system comes to the realisation that the concept of justice is merely an ideal, which in reality is often unattainable, especially for women."

"[...] they descend into paranoia, and carnage unfolds in a network of marvellously-layered backstabbing."

If Thomas Hardy had blessed his female characters with more than an “ephemeral precious essence of youth,” perhaps he would have produced something along the lines of Dorothy McDowell’s Casterbridge, an adaptation of Hardy’s 1886 novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.

"Against the backdrop of Majek’s enigmatic blue-toned figures, Spencer, with the help of a multi-roling, all-Black voice cast playing a broad spectrum of characters, reveals tantalising glimpses of these figures’ lives."