Culture

Oxford’s summer scene: The season of open-air performances

Trinity term at Oxford University is defined by wisteria, wild swimming, and warmth. Students find themselves torn between revelling in weather that is finally outdoor-seating-at-the-pub acceptable and piles of...

Easter Eggs

"I’m really sorry I missed your house. Even the Easter Bunny can make mistakes."

Review: An Anthology of Pairs – ‘Two’s a Party’

There’s a particular theatrical magic that comes from two people simply talking in a...

‘So Far, So Good’ and redefining the spotlight

So Far, So Good is a student-written, student-performed play that is shaking up the...

Diversity, waste, and travel: what globalisation means for food

For many people, being at home during lockdown means that there is an abundance of time to spend preparing, eating, and thinking about food. Combined with...

Mad Dogs and Englishmen: 50 years on

In the spring of 1970, 50 years ago, a collection of musicians underwent the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, which came to be immortalised in a...

Reading ‘Neurotribes’ in Autism Acceptance Month

This Autism Awareness Month, I decided to become more aware of the history of the condition I’ve lived with my entire life but was only diagnosed...

“I am together”: Love and loneliness in the work of Wim Wenders

In the quasi-apocalyptic gloom of these days, we desperately seek ways to pass the time, to numb our loneliness, to move on. The German...

Why Tiger King is the antithesis, not the antidote, to the Coronavirus

There are under 3500 tigers remaining in the wild globally. There are anywhere between 5000-10,000 tigers currently in captivity in the United States. This...

Friday Favourite: A Month in the Country

Sometimes you reread a book because it is beautiful; sometimes you do it because a mysterious benefactor on your flight gave you a concerning...

A Taste of Honey Today

A Taste of Honey, a play by the Salford-born writer Shelagh Delaney, debuted in 1958 and is widely considered to be a landmark work...

Say So, TikTok, and the ‘Viral Sleeper Hit’

William McCathie examines TikTok's hit-making capabilities

The era of digital drama

When you imagine ‘going to the theatre’, an image of you in your dressing gown, sitting on the sofa and eating popcorn probably doesn’t come to mind....

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’: A study of depression during confinement

TW: discussion of mental illness, suicide “It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.” As the...

Uniquely comforting consolation: a look at Netflix’s Tiger King

A show perfectly designed to offer release has to do that without troubling itself with the burdens of social responsibility

An Afternoon in Late Autumn

And I was all the warmth and life on earth.

Comfort Films: What We Do in the Shadows

Niche is one way to describe a dark comedy about a group of vampires muddling through day-to-day life in Wellington suburbia. However, Taika Waititi...

Titian behind closed doors: the ethics of an erotic gaze.

“Anybody who loves painting loves Titian.” With these bold words and the familiar, if rather flat, echo of Einaudi’s piano, the BBC streamed, digital...

Friday Favourite: The Waves

The Waves by Virginia Woolf is a book that I unapologetically love. As an English student with a long reading list, I don’t tend...

Music History: Django Reinhardt

George Newton reflects on the life of the jazz guitarist who defined an era.

Oxford love can hurt like this

Okay, I thought, when I found myself two weeks into lockdown: NOW is the time to finally read that copy of Brideshead Revisited I...

Review: Corpus Christi

Once in a while you want to remain in your seat after the closing credits appear - you find yourself unable to simply get...

Richard II, coronavirus and creativity – in conversation with Dorothy McDowell

It seems like there’s enough drama happening in the real world to justify dark theatres and empty stages. The Edinburgh Fringe has been cancelled,...

Can museums be decolonised? The restitution question

The first step of reckoning with our colonial past is recognising its remaining presence. Every aspect of modern life is informed by the spoils...