Saturday 5th July 2025

Culture

‘Pour summer in a glass’: retracing Dandelion Wine

“You did not hear them coming. You hardly heard them go. The grass bent down, sprang up again. They passed like cloud shadows downhill ... the boys of summer,...

Reviving the symposium at the Ashmolean Krasis programme

Dara Mohd, herself a Krasis Scholar, converses with Dr Jim Harris about his object-centred symposium program, Krasis, at the Ashmolean Museum.

‘This Room Their Lives’ in Magdalen College’s Waynflete building

Every Magdalen member remembers their first encounter with the Waynflete Building. Sticking out a...

In More, Pulp aren’t just trading on nostalgia – they’re fresh

In a year where many are talking about one Britpop band in particular –...

Reviving my Childhood – Avatar: The Last Airbender

The year was 2005 and at the time, it was just another Nickelodeon show I’d force my sister to sit through with me. But it quickly became more than that,

The beauty of bedroom pop

The bedroom can feel like an inner sanctum, a personal hideout away from the public. Therefore, there seems to be a contradiction in bedroom pop becoming...

The future of bookshops is more uncertain than ever

"In the wake of Covid-19, it remains to be seen whether bookshops will continue to encourage our love of browsing."

History of Ideas: talking politics and escaping science

This podcast is a godsend. It’s like a crash course in ideology, philosophical chat with a friend and yogic meditation all rolled into one.

“Helpless”: Whatever Happened to Maria Reynolds?

Fear not, those of us who were unable to afford tickets to Hamilton on Broadway – for the mere cost of selling your soul...

Veraneio

"Raised in the endless, relentless summer of tropical living, snapshots of summer swamp my memories of childhood – beachside days, aching sunburns, blond locks tainted unflatteringly green by chlorinated pools."

A love letter to Oxford’s music scene

In a city of dreaming spires, where casual magic hangs in every cobbled lane at golden hour and each paradisal quad in bloom, I...

“The frailty of everything revealed at last”: dystopian fiction in a time of crisis

"Dystopian narratives may be bleak, but they do not contribute to the barbarity of our times: they are, instead, a powerful reminder that in the midst of crisis, beauty and hope do remain."

Theatre and the Working Class

When someone mentions British actors, who do you think of? Your mind probably jumps to people like Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston or Eddie Redmayne....

Cherwell’s albums of the year so far

Ten albums that we've judged to be among the best of this weird, weird year so far

Review: Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Punisher’

with each song, the world becomes blurrier, as if drunk, only to be immediately sharpened again with the piercing nature of Bridgers’ lyrics

Review: Khruangbin’s ‘Mordechai’

Part of Khruangbin’s marketing campaign for Mordechai features an update to their online playlist curator, AirKhruang. The 2015 website allowed listeners to create playlists for their...

‘The time to change is now’: Women behind the camera

We need to make a career as a female filmmaker seem possible, and to put pressure on the industry to give more women a chance

Experiencing museums and galleries in a COVID-19 age

"Even if there were a sense of restriction, it would feel a little tone-deaf to mourn the old, ‘normal’ gallery visit." Josie Moir ponders our experience of galleries and museums in a COVID-19 Age

In defence of minimalism

People like being right about things - they like being in control.

Musicals in movies: The interplay between reality and fantasy

Musical movies, juxtaposed with and exposed by realism, make me feel more. They make everything hurt more when you watch them fall apart, but they make the highs even higher.

Learning From Blackface Comedy

conformism to a prejudiced society shapes our perception of humour more than we may realise

Tuning in: Podcasts in lockdown

It’s no wonder then that in times of hardship and isolation, such as these, podcasts are more popular than ever.

Eight LGBTQ+ Musical Theatre Songs to Listen to this Pride

As we face the prospect of another six months spent watching Star Wars and ‘sport’ (?) with heterosexual relatives, now more than ever we...

Review: Bridge Theatre’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Set in the mystical woodlands surrounding Athens, with its cocktail of magic, love triangles, and donkey-human hybrids, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream has always...

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