Culture

New Oxford Windrush generation exhibit opens for Black History Month 

Amidst recent political tension provoked by the government’s refusal of slavery reparations to the Caribbean, this year Black History Month is celebrated uniquely in Oxford. The inaugural exhibition at...

“There’s a play in that”: interview with ‘The Gang of Three’ playwright Robert Khan

It’s Budget Day as I sit in the foyer of the Oxford Playhouse. Down...

‘Celebrity Traitors’ season two: Complex and compelling

Reality TV series The Traitors has returned with its celebrity version and has topped viewing charts for a second time. People are hooked on the show where logical reasoning and random chance are simultaneously at play, in a game full of drama, tension, and cliffhangers.

Oxford’s art scene: A picture still being painted

Who gets to make art, who gets to see it, and whose art history...

In conversation: Chase Rice

US Country singer-songwriter Chase Rice has gone Platinum multiple times, co-written a Diamond-certified hit, and last year reached No. 1 with his single...

Review: Diary of a Murderer and Other Stories by Kim Young-Ha

‘It’s been twenty-five years since I last murdered someone, or has it been twenty-six?’ A serial killer suffering from Alzheimer’s attempts to protect his daughter...

Review: Dr Faustus

“Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.”  As clawing hands ooze from behind a bookshelf, as twisted shadows creep against the walls,...

Interview with Musician and Neuroscientist Izzy Frances

Musician and neuroscientist Izzy Frances loves to play on your heartstrings. Propelled by a desire to understand herself and others, Izzy has burst onto...

Picasso at the RA and the experience of solitude

The curved, sick, and boney fingers are everywhere. The Frugal Meal (1904), one of Picasso’s early paper engravings, is immediately striking.

C’est la Brie: why we love cheesy music

Few would care to admit that the dated tunes of 'cheese' make up a significant portion of our listening habits, and yet music once...

Where Things Turn Out Different

Bombay is an Anglicisation of the Marathi word Mumbai. For this reason, it has become a source of awkwardness.

A Hard Day’s Nightmare: Music and Sleep Paralysis

A typical depiction of sleep paralysis may be found in Henry Fuseli’s 1781 painting ‘The Nightmare’. A woman in a clingy white dress sprawls...

Review: Conversations with Friends

At one point in Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends, the protagonist, Frances, tells her best friend and former girlfriend, Bobbi: ‘If I could talk like you...

Review: Bad Bunny’s YHLQMDLG

In December 2017, Bad Bunny performed just one block from where I was living at the time in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I didn’t know who...

David Copperfield: strikingly modern?

We often speak of a ‘writer for our times’, the ‘voice of a generation’ – there is this need to define our age, to...

Photo Editorial: Inheritance

"Sentimental value": it's an emotional attachment that can be hard to put your finger on, an intimate sense of connection which runs more deeply...

Brits 2020: Where performance met politics

This year’s Brit awards took place on the 18th of February, and did not disappoint as a night of celebration of British culture, entertainment...

Review: That Reminds Me (2019)

Fragmentary, authentic and poetic – Derek Owusu’s latest publication, That Reminds Me, succeeds in its painfully honest exploration of a young Ghanaian boy’s journey into adulthood.  When...

Translating nature into the theatre

Audition season for Trinity plays is beginning. Prepare your monologues and get ready to neglect your studies. More importantly though, get shopping for a...

Review: Facial Recognition

In “Facial Recognition”, the main organiser, Lucy Tirahan’s ambition is clear: to break the unspoken taboos surrounding mixed-ethnic heritage. The exhibition is extremely successful. It avoids romanticizing while...

In conversation: Greta Morgan of Vampire Weekend and Springtime Carnivore

Greta Morgan - otherwise known as Springtime Carnivore - has made a name for herself as a touring member of indie rock band Vampire...

Eco-Fiction

Last November, Waterstones named Greta Thunberg as their ‘author of the year’. Her collection of speeches, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference, certainly...

Review: The Oxford Revue and Friends

To keep an audience laughing consistently at amateur comedy sketches for over two hours is the impressive achievement of the cast of ‘Oxford Revue...

Review: ‘Sorry’ at the Jericho Tavern

Asha Lorenz’s eyeballs roll back into her skull. One half of the songwriting duo behind the band Sorry, she scowls the chorus of ‘Right...

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