Saturday 10th January 2026

Culture

2025 releases you may not have seen (but definitely should)

It’s that time of year again: the season in which we are inundated with a never-ending stream of lists ranking 2025’s top releases. Cherwell, however, will not attempt to...

‘Dark, revealing, gripping’: In conversation with the cast of ‘JACK’

JACK, by Musketeer Productions, reimagines the cult story of the most notorious serial killer...

‘The political is also political’: Ash Sarkar’s ‘Minority Rule’

Universities have often been seen as bastions of radicalism. Forgetting the fact that higher...

Graceful and self-assured: Circle Mirror Transformation reviewed

Boulevard Productions’ Circle Mirror Transformation is a faithful and competent take on Annie Baker’s...

Why Oxford’s Fashion Gala was better than the Met’s  

'The line of reporters and photographers asking the same questions to uncomfortable-looking celebrities, who try to recollect why Lagerfeld was in fact their personal hero, makes for tortuous watching.'

Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying: Tracing the Atmospheres of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

'When the pandemic hit Ontario, William Faulkner was a cadet in the Canadian Royal Air Force. Writing home to his parents, he would bemoan the lengthiness of his base’s lockdown, and the protracted sense of time it engendered.'

Interview: ‘A Night of Queer Music’ at Holywell

Deborah Acheampong (Producer) in conversation with Adrienne Knight (Musical Director), Katie Kirkpatrick, and Eliza Hogermeer (both singers) on Vanguard Productions' upcoming show 'A Night of Queer Music', a dramatic music concert, at the Holywell Music Room, on the 30th and 31st of May.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3

'If you’ve been sitting at home with your cork board and red string, becoming the next Hercule Poirot trying to work out how on earth the MCU fits together nowadays, give this intergalactic film a try.'

Embracing the Echoes: The Significance and Allure of Literary Retellings

'The concept of reimagining an existing story is relatively new in the context of storytelling, emerging more prominently in recent years.'

Inside the Oxford fashion scene: the Fashion Gala designers

'I spoke to some of the Fashion Gala designers, who told me about their background in the world of fashion and design, their pieces for this year’s gala, and where they find their inspiration.'

The shift towards online thrift: a guide

'It is okay to deliberately buy fast-fashion second-hand since it is already in circulation and will not constitute to financially supporting unethical practices. Honestly, the longer it avoids landfill the better.'

Interview: ‘The Mandrake of Machiavelli’ at Exeter College

An interview with Kian Moghaddas (Director), Matilda Piovella (Assistant Director), and the cast of 'The Mandrake', the Exeter College Garden Play.

Between Love and Hate: The Strokes’ Guide to Staying Together

'US-based pop-rock band The Strokes have encountered just about all of rock’s common killers. And yet, 22 years on from their first album, they are still here – and reportedly working on a seventh.'

The White Stuff and its Discontents

'Increasingly, then, the heritage bequeathed to us in these museums is not just trapped in glass, but also in a host of moralising, ‘problematising’ and, ultimately, infantilising, narratives that are in their nature more political than educational.'

‘Ornamented choral what?’ – your favourite early sacred music like you’ve never heard it before

'What is ‘polyphony’? I hear you cry. Why is it ‘choral’ and what makes it ‘ornamented’?'

The Identity Crisis of Everything Everywhere All At Once

'In an alternate universe, you are not an Oxford student reading Cherwell. In another alternate universe, you are a pinata hanging from a tree. In yet another alternate universe, you have hot dogs for fingers.'

Female Rage: Too normal to be so rare

'A quick glance at the TikTok search results for ‘female rage’ tells a very interesting story - women, shouting and expressing their anger without shame, presented as though this is something shocking.'

‘Women, Scorned’: Exploring Feminine Rage in Art

'Feminine rage is all the rage. It’s everywhere.'

Review: A Poet and A Scholar.

'The audience of Kian Moghaddas’ A Poet and a Scholar was in hysterics pretty much the entire way through.'

The Super Mario Bros. Movie – A review

'This movie will make you feel like you’re sitting back at whichever Nintendo console you first met that little, moustached man.'

Normalising transgression: A review of Joyland.

'In Joyland, queerness becomes banal, and patriarchy is revealed to be futile.'

Is That an Angel? No, it’s Maisie Peters – Tour Review

'The Good Witch, embarking upon her first headlining tour, has brewed up a concoction of heartbreak and hope, insecurity and exuberance'

Review of PAMFIR: ‘A raw and unpretentious thriller’

The sounds of heavy breathing and rustling form the first few seconds of Pamfir, the debut feature film of Ukrainian director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk. These...

Interview: ‘Macbeth’ at the Pilch, an ensemble of tragedies

"Shakespeare gives us so much space to sort of deal with psychological problems, which aren't always necessarily textual, but really come through in rehearsals and give the performance a higher level of connection with the audience."

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