Culture

Death of the Album, rise of the playlist

The album, once the definitive artistic statement in music, is being increasingly overshadowed by the rise of the playlist. Streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music have reshaped...

Dindymene: A Dream

And on the seventh day, we found HER temple, feasted on HER sight. Enthroned. Flanked...

In the Beginning

I was alone with the earth and the sun before youcame along: there was...

Mac Miller grapples with mortality on ‘Balloonerism’

When the 'D' rings out from the organ on the dream-like second track of...

The Secret History Characters as Oxford Tropes

Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History is set in an exclusive college in Vermont but can be read as a satire of Oxford and its students. It invites us to question how little differentiates us from the elitist American universities.

Nosferatu: From Murnau to Eggers

Over one hundred years since its first screening, F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) is not as terrifying as it once was,...

In conversation with ‘The Children’

‘If you’re curious as to how and why cows, nuclear reactors, tricycles, peperami, and old people doing yoga all fit into one play…come and...

The Ultimate Picture Palace: A Profile

The Ultimate Picture Palace has been at the forefront of Oxford’s cinema scene for over a century. First opening in 1911, under the enthusiastic...

Sanskrit drama returns to Oxford

Building on a strong recent tradition of plays performed in Sanskrit (with surtitles!) we are delighted to present this beautiful drama from ancient India,...

Maria – Pablo Larraín’s grab at ‘high art’

Countless documentaries have been made, and even more biographies published on the life of Maria Callas (1923-1977). She has become a mythical woman upon...

“Wait and Hope” – The Count of Monte Cristo: Review

The Count of Monte Cristo premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024 to little fanfare. However, it turned out to be a stunning...

To Julian – Ella O’Shea

you’re enwombed within stone, this anchorhold,wool on your skin, the draught on your feetink on your nose, barley in your teeth.to look at a...

The Globes and what we’re getting wrong

“Thirty years ago,” Demi Moore told a wildly enthusiastic Golden Globes audience, “I had a producer tell me that I was a ‘popcorn actress’...

Five Hip-Hop Gems You Missed in 2024

A year dominated by the Kendrick Lamar-Drake beef, 2024 made it all too easy to let underground hip-hop slip through the cracks into obscurity....

Hot springs: why Iceland is a breeding ground for musicians

Whilst for many, Iceland is associated with plane-grounding volcanic eruptions and sweeping landscapes, it is equally home to a surprising number of recognisable artists...

Mitosis

A letterA single-cell, Stuttering, Reoccurring, Scrap on /The page /Fragmented/Born from pain …A zygote …Dividing… Turning inwards;Malformormed; Abortorted;Misbirthirthed-I would choose- An embryo that...

Cherwell Film Editors Must-See Pictures of 2024

Cherwell’s Film Section Editors decided to get together and review their favourite releases of 2024. Ranging from animation to drama, these are the Editors’...

Has the modern movie musical lost its magic?

As I begin writing, my parents have just walked through the door having finally experienced the cultural phenomenon that is Wicked (2024). My mother...

Back to the Future: Are 2010 Throwbacks the Soundtrack of 2025?

The early 2010’s occupy a curious space in cultural memory, neither distant enough to be considered history, nor recent enough to feel like the...

From the Chrysler to the Weston: 100 years of Art Deco

Florence Wolter explores the impact left by Art Deco on Oxford and European Culture. A century on, should we be looking forward, not back?

Exploring ‘Into the Woods’

Last week, I sat down with Luke Nixon, Lydia Free, and Isobel Connolly, the directorial force of a new ‘vivid and visionary’ production of...

Review: The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe

There are some writers whose line of literary descent is so clear as to resemble a kind of genealogical chart. The lineage of the...

BookTok: The Last Page of the Publishing Industry?

The #booktok stands that have become fixtures of bookshops across the country inspire intense feelings in me. It’s a mix of guilty curiosity, superiority,...

Gladiator II: A lack-lustre return to Rome

With Gladiator II, Ridley Scott returns to the streets of imperial Rome not in triumph, but to decidedly muted applause.