Saturday 18th April 2026

Culture

Bridging Communities: Vocatio:Responsio’s Liverpool Tour

Vocatio:Responsio, meaning Call:Response in Latin, is an early music ensemble founded and directed by the Merseyside-based violinist Samuel Oliver-Sherry, a current third year music student at St Anne’s College....

‘Comedy is very deceptive’: Seán Carey on ‘Operation Mincemeat’

As a history student, you occasionally come across stories so strange they feel almost fictional. Operation Mincemeat is one of them.

‘People are so hungry to create together’: Lisa Ko on going analogue, crafting, and writing the future

It’s 11:02am in New York when Lisa Ko appears on the video call. In Oxford, the sun is almost down.

How 2025’s biggest films made their mark through music

The recent Oscar nominations have allowed us to reflect on how fundamental musical scores are to film, and the highlights of last year’s film soundtracks.

“Vagina.” There, I said it.

Vulvar art and gendered fantasy

C. S. Lewis’ fantasy worlds: holding the mirror up to nature

Fantasy reveals as much about our society as it does about our desire for escape.

Post-Post-Punk: Got the Spirit, Lose the Feeling

What it comes down to is the fact that post-punk lacks the plasticity of genres like rock or hip-hop, which freely pool together music that would otherwise be separated by decades. It is, by its very name, less a style than a moment in time

The Ruling Class – ‘a new beast, though one they are competently battling’

Stage Wrong Productions tackle the challenging black comedy on at the BT in third week.

Daydreamers: Fantasy in the Face of Stasis

There’s a scene in one of my favourite films, High Fidelity (2000), in which John Cusack’s Rob plays out a number of angry reactions in his head...

Interview: Lucy Worsley

"I don't think history always 'gets better'": the historian and presenter on queens, clothing and curation

In Search of a Poet

Exploring the history and the hype behind the role of the Oxford Professor of Poetry

‘In Search of Equillibrium’

A review of Theresa Lola’s debut poetry collection (Nine Arches Press, 2019).

The Power of Telling Tales in Ali Smith’s ‘Spring’

'This third instalment in Smith’s quartet is perhaps the best yet; a novel for our times that asks all the right questions of the current climate, but also of itself. '

Singing to Say No to Cinematic Fantasies

"Titanic Rising" is an album that dispels the fantasies presented by film

Fantasy Music’s Apex – Djwadi’s Score for ‘Game of Thrones’

What makes the 'Game of Thrones' score as iconic as it is?

LOVE/SICK – ‘Your trip to Tesco’s will never seem the same again’

Matter of Act’s ambitious new production in an “alternate suburban reality” details the joys of falling in and out of love.

Every Brilliant Thing – ‘strikes a staggering balance between serious and joyful’

For a play about suicide, Every Brilliant Thing is an unexpectedly life-affirming and hilarious production

Q&A – a play that ‘takes a turn into the chaotic and absurd’

Witty, absurd, and ultimately hilarious, Q&A is an entertaining one-act play, even if at times the dialogue lacks spontaneity

Electrolyte – an energetic fusion of electronica and spoken word

A dizzying exploration of mental health at The North Wall holds promise, but is undermined by its simplistic ending.

Rego’s Abortion Pastels: An artistic fight against stigma

The pastels of Paula Rego reclaim marginalised women from state-sanctioned shame.

An Artist Censored and Shamed

In April 1912, aged 21, Egon Schiele found himself imprisoned for 24 days, having been accused of seducing and abducting underage girls and exhibiting...

Love/Sick: An anthology of romantic adrenaline and hysteria

A production that tackles what is the most enigmatic of all human experiences: love.

What does it take to be an actor?

Want to be a fantastic actor? All it takes is method acting, audience empathy and a pursuit of the fantasy world.

The ‘happily ever after’ we seek only exists in fiction

Reading stories full of delusions allows us to escape from the modern world

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