Tuesday 16th June 2026

Theatre

Slow down, you crazy child: What Oxford student theatre can learn from garden plays

Student theatre strives to be as professional as possible, but the annual garden play offers something unique: permission to have fun.

‘Our House’ in the middle of Beaumont Street

'Our House' ultimately becomes not just a story about crime or morality, but about the vulnerability of growing up and the frightening uncertainty of trying to decide who you are.

Testing my patients: ‘The Effect’ at the BT Studio reviewed

Necessarily navigating the difference between ‘side effects’ and reality, the play strikes a fine balance between what one thinks and what one feels.

‘The Harrowing of Hell.26’ reviewed

Fundamentally, The Harrowing of Hell.26 is a finely acted, well-produced play which was enjoyable enough to watch, but its conclusion is unsatisfying.

Underrated Spaces: Jesus College Hall

The Devil is in the detail of this early modern revival

Funny Friends Preview – ‘A roundup of all the best student talent in the country’

Funny friends and frenetic feminisms fuse in this upcoming Playhouse performance

The Lonesome West review – ‘a pressure-cooker of rage and almost-erupting violence’

Practically Peter Production give an impressive rendering of Martin McDonagh's dark comedy

Like A Virgin review – ‘the range of relationship difficulties explored is certainly impressive’

Sam Moore's play about the complexities of relationships finds resonance with audiences of all kinds

Butt Kapinski Review – ‘a masterclass in light-hearted entertainment and audience participation’

Charles Britton is both amazed and horrified by Deanna Fleysher's oddball creation

Review: Brave New World

Cesca Echlin is unsettled by Four Seven Two's evocation of Huxley's World State

Review – “Nell Gwynn”

University College Players capture the extravagance and obscenity of Restoration London in their production of Swale’s 2013 comedy

No Market For Old Men review – ‘an hour of fast-paced sketch comedy’

Krysianna Papadakis finds a lot of nuance in Oxford Revue's latest sketch show

The Writer review – ‘jumping out at you in wild, exciting, provocative vitality’

Hickson tries one formal experiment after another and each time brings a different gender-dynamic under her lens

Review – The House of Bernarda Alba

Ela Portnoy is impressed by this elegant adaptation of the Lorca masterpiece

OCTOPUS – Review

Is OCTOPUS, like the Sex Pistols are now, “just” uncontroversial protest? Or does it strike deeper than that?

Travesties review – ‘a very competent production of a fiendishly complicated play’

Roddy Howland Jackson is charmed by a dynamic, absurdist comedy of historic proportions

How do we stage Shakespeare in the digital age?

Efforts to combine the theatrical and the digital are shaping how we experience Shakespeare in the twenty-first century

Clean Break – Theatre and the Criminal Justice System

Cesca Echlin talks to Clean Break, the theatre charity offering female offenders a means of expression

‘Black Men Walking’ – Review

An exuberant meditation on nature, belonging, and blackness

Lysistrata Review – ‘some over-directing vitiates a few performances’

Katie Sayer's anticipation of Oriel Classics Society's interpretation of a bizarre Greek comedy turns out to be a tragedy

Death By Murder Review – ‘an endearingly ambitious bunch of clowns’

Oxford's newest improvised comedy troupe impress in their debut show at the Pilch

Travesties Preview – ‘I have never felt so threatened by a teacup’

Isabella Welch sees a lot of promise in a dynamic adaptation of Tom Stoppard's hidden gem

An interview with Bea Udale-Smith

We chat to Bea-Udale Smith ahead of her upcoming production of 'Travesties' on how to get involved with directing at Oxford

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