Sunday 18th January 2026

Culture

‘Beautifully we may rot’: ‘Madame La Mort’ in review

In a small, black-painted room on the top floor of a pub in Islington, known as The Hope Theatre, Madame La Mort was staged for the public for the first time.

Damaging detachment: Reflections on the Booker Prize 

This Christmas vac, I made up my mind to get out of my reading slump using the Booker Prize shortlist, revealing toxic masculinity as a key theme.

In defence of the theatrical release

If film, like all art, nourishes itself on its own œuvre, I don’t think we can afford to sever the association between the cinema and the film.

Falling out of Louvre

In spite of recent events, the expected heightened security was nowhere evident.

The Long Con: The fine art of deception

It is very easy to be lulled into a false empowerment by the critical process, believing that the role can be as creative as can be observational.

#Cancelled: Disillusionment in the age of Twitter #MeToo

Watching Weinstein movies like Pulp Fiction, or as more recently discussed, listening to music by R Kelly, in a way are acts of undue forgiveness.

Review: House of Improv presents: I’m an Improviser Get Me Out of Here! – ‘relentlessly silly’

House of Improv presents an improvised hour of moon shoes, jacuzzis, and reckless fun

Satiating Sá-Carneiro

Exploring the life and work of an acclaimed Portuguese writer, at the heart of which lies the desire to discover.

Review: Gods are Fallen and All Safety Gone – ‘a relationship fraying at the edges’

Rose on a Rail's latest production provides a touching and intimate look into a complex mother-daughter relationship.

The Forgiveness Arc

Here are some of the best musical theatre songs centred around forgiveness

Resisting bodily urges: extreme asceticism in medieval female saints’ lives

The modern-day 'anorexia memoir' has its origin in the genre of medieval saints' lives

Mary Queen of Scots review: ‘artistic licence breathes life into history’

Rourke brings a fresh take on the fraught relationship between two women ruling in a man’s world.

Jenny Holzer at the Tate: An Exhibition for Instagram

Olya Makarova reviews Jenny Holzer's exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Pictures in the sandcastles

The artist as revolutionary is a wonderful image, and perhaps one that is forced upon creatives of our day. However, it is imperative to recall both the political power of artistic media, and the inherent ideology of created works.

Review: Frog’s Legs – ‘light-hearted façade with a dark core’

Shepherd-Cross' new play treads a fine line between offensiveness and good taste - is it all the better for it?

The Pitchfork Disney Preview – ‘a play of delight and disgust’

The Pitchfork Disney shows at the BT Studio this week

Create and destroy

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge” Mikhail Bakunin

The Human Impulse

Investigating the social and biological imperatives behind art

Sexualisation in music: liberation or objectification?

Art and creative expression have always made up our social and sensitive nature, from telling stories, to performing primal dances, to painting scenes of human experience on cave walls.

Why do we write?

We write for ourselves, for the reader, and for wider society.  And I think that’s probably a good enough reason to write an article for Cherwell.

Enron Preview – ‘financial collapse made tangible’

A preview of the Theatre Goose and Sour Peach Productions' play at the Oxford Playhouse this week.

Projections of time: film and fashion

The importance of costumes in heralding new trends and evoking the past

Art, Intimacy and the Avant-Garde

The Barbican displays different kinds of ‘modern couples’ in an immersive blend of love and art

Beautiful Boy review: powerful, painful, poignant

Beautiful Boy is unlikely to have an unintentional glamorising effect. We witness the oblivion of being high before the inevitable crash down to a deeper and darker place.

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