Tidings of Culture and Joy

Culture Editors

As I make note of my cultural Christmas, I can’t help but think that my gifts are bound to be thuddingly low-brow in comparison to those enjoyed by my refined Culture brethren. Oh well. I got a few books including the new Sherlock Holmes novel The House of Silk (by Anthony Horowitz), which was brilliant, and Dashiel Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which failed to live up to my expectations. My stocking was overflowing with DVDs this year, including a Woody Allen box set, Attack the Block and X-men: First Class, a film that I loved because a) I’m a massive nerd and b) it’s a genuinely intelligent, well-crafted superhero film, although that may seem like a contradiction in terms. I also received some classic Marx comedy stuff, so even my laughter can be slightly pretentious this term.I didn’t get much in the way of music but my parents did treat me to some theatrical treats in London including Legally Blonde: The Musical which was surprisingly awesome. We also saw a production of Richard II which I really enjoyed and an imaginative, hilarious version of The Canterbury Tales that was pretty faithful to the source material and thus quite awkward to watch with parents.

 Huw Fullerton

At my house, the descent of three culture-obsessed uncles makes Christmas probably my most cultural time of year, beating the hours spent on my English degree hands down. I don’t think that the Christmas University Challenge was watched so religiously anywhere else in the country (or, indeed watched at all… ) or that any other family quiz descended into such pedantry and venom. 

Gift-wise the uncles performed excellently as always, between them giving me a National Portrait Gallery diary, Joan Didion’s memoir Blue Nights, a calendar of ‘Women who read’ and a DVD of The Kids are All Right. All were consumed worryingly quickly considering the amount of Chaucer I had been gifted by ever-generous tutors, and all were excellent, especially the surprising and moving Joan Didion. My brother also painted me a picture, which will presumably pay my mortgage when he’s famous. It’s gaining value as we speak.

 My continuing hunger for modern novels, fed by my refusal to read anything in my spare time that might come up in my exams, should be sated this year by new novels by Anne Tyler and Peter Carey. Hilary Mantel’s sequel to Wolf Hall, (which will, sadly, be quite useful in the context of my degree – I hope it doesn’t dull my enjoyment too much) is coming out in May and focusses on the intense political period before the downfall of Anne Boleyn. I’m also looking forward to  The Great Gatsby at the end of the year and seeing all the questionable Oxford plays I’ll be cajoled to go and see this term. Oh, and all the Chaucer. Really excited about that. 

Barbara Speed

Stage Editors

Despite writing a letter to Santa specifically expressing my earnest wishes for something vaguely stage related to help me in my contribution to this double page spread, it seems I have not been so well behaved this year and received a book on Downton Abbey instead. I trawled the internet in hope that a stage adaptation might be in the pipelines but, alas, my search was in vain.

Still, I managed to find plenty of possibilities for late presents throughout 2012. Exciting news just out is of a Rupert Goold and Michael Fentiman adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, utilising 360-degree video and puppetry at Kensington Gardens. Fresh from Broadway, and from the creators of South Park and Avenue Q, comes The Book of Mormon. And Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton bring the Chichester Festival Production of Sweeney Todd to the West End as well. The Woman in Black will be coming to a cinema screen near you, starring the boy wizard Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps, and conversely The King’s Speech is set to make its stage debut in February. One cannot forget the World Shakespeare Festival taking place as part of 2012’s Cultural Olympiad which is set to bring productions from 37 theatre companies from across the world, right into the heart of cities across the UK. And I haven’t even begun to talk about Dickens 2012, a celebration to mark the 200th birthday of the great Victorian novelist. It will see the first ever adaptation of his The Life of our Lord as well as a myriad of other adaptations and productions inspired by his legacy. It is going to be a cracking year and I haven’t even begun to look at the pickings of dance, comedy or opera. One thing is for sure, 2012 is definitely going to be worth saving your Christmas money for.

Daniel Frampton

The festive season is much maligned for its increased commercialisation and supposed tendency to begin earlier every year. Yet these aspects are far surpassed in ability to annoy by the pantomime, an utterly odious practice which I am forced to partake in on a  yearly basis under the pretense of a ‘Christmas family treat’. 

Objectively speaking, possessing a sunnier disposition might result in my appreciation of this institution on a more basic, or perhaps more profound level, but I very much doubt it. Bad acting, ham-fisted pop culture references and god forbid, breaking the fourth wall, while enjoyable for some, are for me too strongly reminiscent of the worst kind of student theatre. Though at least the pantomime has tradition as an alibi for its sheer awfulness.

The Oxford theatre scene certainly possesses many examples of the above, but thankfully there is a great deal of exception to said detritus. This term the student offerings to the Oxford Playhouse stage are among the most interesting of the last few years, and have already generated much excitement confined not only to the theatrical community, but also to the general student populace. More delights, I don’t doubt, will grace the stages of the Burton Taylor, Keble O’Reilly and new Simpkins Lee theatres, as well as a host of other spaces. 

This term, more than ever, we will endeavor to separate the wheat from the crap, so that you, gentle reader, don’t have to financially embarrass yourself while enduring an experience horribly reminiscent of my annual trips to the local production of Dick Wittington. Thank us later.

Charlotte Lennon

 

Film and TV editors

This Christmas, as part of my longtime ambition to be like Mr Gradgrind from Hard Times, I asked for help in gaining lots of no-nonsense scientific knowledge. I requested from my loved ones a book about space, preferably with gorgeous photographs of asteroid belts etcetera to make the whole thing more palatable. In the resulting publication all facts are squashed sadly into the margins by the luxurious visuals. 

I feel bad. It’s basically science porn. Anyway, box ticked! I am now a scientifically informed and balanced individual, and can transfer my focus back to the arts. Yuletide cultural highlights included the classic lolloping tones of Reggae Christmas compilations and vintage Christmas Art Attack on ITV. 

Christmas Day itself yielded Sam Mendes’ quiet film Away We Go, which was released a couple of years ago but which I hadn’t seen despite hearing good things about. It offers a rare and welcome focus on the early stages of parenthood and the process of settling down and building a family. I enjoyed it most for its delicate depiction of the gentle, grounded and playful relationship between Verona and Burt (Maya Rudolph, John Krasinksi). It suffers from an uncomfortable undercurrent of bitterness and ridicule towards a few less secure and less socially aware couples, to the point where they are crudely drawn: the boundaries of adorable eccentricity are apparently more rigid than they first appear. But it is sweetly done over all. 

2012 promises to offer shelves of torment for the cash-strapped bibliophile. Thanks to the Millions blog’s list of predicted favourites we can salivate months in advance for this year’s booty. Amongst those I eagerly anticipate is the collection of short stories and essays in The Secret of Evil by Roberto Bolaño; the second volume of the wonderfully expressive intellectual Susan Sontag’s journal, As Consciousness is Harnassed to the Flesh; Santanago by newly translated Hungarian László Krasznahorkai; Marilynne Robinson’s book of essays When I was a Child I Read Books; two plays by Denis Johnson: Soul of a Whore and Purvis, and — for all those as guiltily susceptible to the Tudors as I am – Hilary Mantel’s sequel to Wolf Hall.

Christy Edwall