Wednesday 3rd September 2025

Culture

‘Delusions and Grandeur’ at the Fringe

★★★⯪☆ If there is one word to describe Karen Hall’s Delusions and Grandeur, it is anxious. The one-hour solo cello comedy show is filled with anxiety, existential dread, and uncertainty....

The Oxford Revue at the Fringe

★★★⯪☆ Returning for their 62nd annual pilgrimage to the Edinburgh Fringe, the Oxford Revue rolled...

Academia is hell, literally: R.F. Kuang’s ‘Katabasis’

R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis touches on a range of near-universal academic experiences: impostor syndrome; frantic,...

Oxford Commas at the Fringe – Interview

The Oxford Commas are a contemporary gender-inclusive a capella group who had their Fringe...

The Second Coming of D’Angelo

Sara Semic reviews D'Angelo and the Vanguard's fourteen year-long product of love and labour

Review: Ghost Culture – Ghost Culture

Mark Barclay is sucked into Ghost Culture's gloomy and seductive netherworld

Picks of the Week HT15 Week 1

Cherwell brings you the best of this week's gigs, plays and events

Milestones: The Beer Widget

Ollie Johnson examines the beer widget, the solution to a most profound problem (regarding the issue of effectively canning lesser-carbonated hops-based drinks)

"Washing the dust of daily life off our souls"

Fergus Morgan examines the difficulties endemic in attempting to portray genius

Shakespeare on Trial

Colette Lewis interrogates the implications of this collision between stage and courtroom

Preview: West Side Story

Fay Watson checks out Byzantium Productions' upcoming show

Review: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

Ben Cooke explores Hilary Mantel's ‘Maggiephobia’ in her latest collection of short stories

Loading the Canon: Gil-Scott Heron

Lily McIlwain calls for the addition of a new writer to the literary establishment

Jonathan Yeo: the controversial yet charming artist

Emma Irving discusses celebrities and surgery with Britain’s leading portrait painter

Review: Foxcatcher

Anthony Maskell witnesses performances of depth and gravitas in Bennett Miller's latest film, Foxcatcher

Review: Birdman

Katharine Stocker enjoys a trimphant - if self-conscious - return from Michael Keaton

Review: The Theory of Everything

Ollie Johnson found that the lacking script left the stunning performances out to dry

Review: the latest exhibition of Egon Schiele

Mark Barclay finds that the work of Schiele has lost none of its shock factor in “Schiele: The Radical Nude”

Review: The Interview

Following the controversy miring The Interview's release, Jennie Han finds Seth Rogen's latest childish and inane

Review: An Evening with The Cure

Ben Wilkinson-Turnbull reviews an evening spent watching The Cure at London's Hammersmith Apollo, complete with lipstick, dry ice and spinning tops galore.

Hip-hop rivalry: alive and well at 20

Tom Barrie looks at the history of hip-hop feuding, and its effect of keeping the genre fresh

"Music from another planet": the allure of ‘ugly’ music

With the dawn of a new year in music, Henry Bruce-Jones reflects on 2014's most 'ugly', deviant offerings

The Ten Best Oxford Shows of 2014

We take a look back at the theatrical high points of the past year

The power of the book

In light of the proposed prison book ban being overturned, Rose Sykes examines the redemptive power ascribed to literature and its importance in the prison system

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