The University of Oxford has been ranked as the seventh best university worldwide, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). In the table, which was published on Monday, Oxford gained three places from last year’s performance, scoring 58.9 out of a possible 100 points.
Harvard maintained the top spot, as it has done since the ARWU’s creation in 2003. Cambridge moved up to fourth for the first time since 2009, having previously been ranked fifth. Oxford and Cambridge are, once again, the only UK universities in the top ten, whilst 15 of the top 20 universities are American.
The AWRU is also known as the Shanghai Ranking as it is produced by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. It focuses on research quality, using six indicators which include the number of Nobel Laureate and Field Medallist staff and alumni as well the number of articles published in the journals Nature and Science. Although AWRU has been criticised for its focus on sciences over humanities, it is still one of the most highly esteemed university rankings across the world.
Methods of ranking universities can differ considerably, with the Times Higher Education (THE) World Rankings earlier this year placing Oxford second and the California Institute of Technology first. Meanwhile, the QS World University Rankings, published by Quacquarelli Symonds, placed Cambridge second and Oxford sixth. Differences in ratings can be attributed to the different metrics used in each system. The THE chooses to focus to a greater extent on teaching, whilst QS has historically been criticised for reliance on reputation and peer review indicators.
2016 is the first year in which Chinese universities have appeared in the AWRU’s top 100. Tsinghua University was placed 58th and Peking University 71st. This is also the first year in which more than five Australian universities have been awarded top 100 places.
Oxford’s applications for entry in 2016 were higher than Cambridge, with 19,124 teenagers applying compared to 16,719 for Cambridge: a difference of around 15%. In both cases, there were a record number of applicants, with a total of 35,843 prospective Oxbridge students.
Multiple explanations have been put forward for the discrepancy, including Cambridge’s more stringent A-Level requirements, with many humanities courses requiring A* grades where Oxford does not, and Oxford’s more aggressive outreach schemes.
Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, stressed the role of admissions targets in increasing applications to Oxford when talking to The Daily Telegraph: “[Oxford] has taken into account contextual factors and it has reserved a number of places for students from who have been entitled to free school meals. Oxford is also encouraging people from a diversity of backgrounds to apply.”
Dr Julia Paolitto, Media Relations Manager for Oxford University, commented,“While it’s too early to be able to attribute our increase in applications to any one particular factor, we would take it as a positive sign that the increase in our outreach activity (and effective targeting of groups most under-represented at Oxford) is having an impact on our applications.”
Roughly 29,143 applicants did not secure a place this year – up by 1,044 or 4 per cent – from the 28,099 last year. This figure was a 6% rise on the 27,500 teenagers who were turned down in 2014/15.
Oxford has 3,200 places available, a fewer places than Cambridge’s 3,500 available spots.
Two centuries ago, the academicians of elite fine art schools in cities such as Paris, Florence, and Amsterdam – where the aesthete ruled supreme – would scorn and inveigh at the sight of Michael Craig Martin’s seminal An Oak Tree, 1973. (Water, Glass)
An Oak Tree, Michael Craig Martin, 1973. Photo credit: Anietie Ekanem
The thought of such a piece would very much not have crossed their minds, as art existed solely in the media of painting, printmaking and sculpture, inspired by nature with the work of art being true. What ‘truth’ means has been debated since the Platonic era, through to John Ruskin in the 19th-Century. Evidently, this question of truth coexisted with conceptual art in Britain during this radical period in history which this exhibition explores. For the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War and Second-wave Feminism were all key turning points between 1964 and 1979.
It was this fluidity and continuum of art being pushed to its limits as a consistent means of understanding the world which was prevalent and worked well in this exhibition, Tate Britain’s ‘Conceptual Art in Britain: 1964-79’.
In art’s history, there is a continuity of art being a mediator between the human and the world, often showing what we, as a people, might lack. It counterbalances us: think the Pre-Raphaelites painting pastoral scenes amid the industrial revolution, or France in the late 18th-century using Neoclassicism as a corrective to its decadence. Instead, this exhibition creates and presents us with questions regarding what we consider art to be, in parallel with a period of rapid change. However it doesn’t give us the answers: it doesn’t provide us with a means to correct or re-balance us. Rather, it emphasises what we lack:the answers to questions which the artists themselves have raised.
Soul City, Roelof Louw, 1967. Photo credit: Anietie Ekanem
When visiting this exhibition, one is thrown into the deep end. It is intimidating. Given the connotations of what ‘art’is defined as, one might be taken aback when they are faced with blank white walls with salutes to semiotics, mirrors, and pyramids of oranges. Pretentious or ambitious, you decide — but the exhibition unapologetically triggers a personal response and way of deciphering what it is you see. Conceptual art places the idea above the aesthetic, and in looking and reading, there is a lot of thought that has gone into the art work that form the exhibition. The art in the exhibition makes us look inward at our own conceptions and ideas, drawing a continuous line of how we see and experience art from the past to our present.
Mirror Piece, Ian Burn, 1967. Photo credit: Anietie Ekanem
This is why I would posit that it is this post-Wilson, pre-Thatcher period which saw the apex of abstraction. For this conceptualism is rooted in its thought, as opposed to lack of technical skill, or its being reactionary for the sake of being so. It is challenging and it makes you think, which might not be for the person seeking a calm afternoon (the Georgia O’Keefe is across the Thames at Tate Modern). This exhibition forces you to get on its level, and that makes it compelling.
Oxford University has received mixed results from the National Student Survey (NSS). Nationwide, Oxford came joint 20th with 15 other higher education institutions, with an overall student satisfaction rate of 90 per cent. Whilst the Oxford University Medical School received the highest satisfaction rating of all British medical schools, the Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) took the bottom spot in the NSS tables for the fifth year in a row.
The NSS is a series of 23 online questions relating to six areas of the learning experience as well as student unions and overall student satisfaction. It is aimed at final year undergraduates, and assesses universities and other higher education providers on a number of satisfaction-based criteria every year. The 2016 poll, which was released on 10th August, had a sample size in Oxford of 2919 finalists. Across the country the poll showed student satisfaction remained at record levels.
Oxford University performed particularly well in satisfaction with the medical school, in which 99 per cent of medical students agreed that they were satisfied with their experience of the course, with 87 per cent claiming high satisfaction. Dr Tim Lancaster, Director of Clinical Studies, commented: ‘It is wonderful to receive this appreciation from our students for both our six and four year medical courses. The NSS consists of 22 questions and covers six domains in addition to overall satisfaction. Oxford achieved high scores across all domains. This reflects not only the excellence of teaching throughout the two courses, but the high quality of the administrative staff who provide such a high level of organisation and cohesion. Effective partnership with our NHS partners is another crucial part of this success. I would like to thank all the scientists, clinicians and administrators who contribute to our team.” He added, “It is particularly pleasing that Oxford is able to achieve high levels of both student satisfaction and graduate achievement.”
On the other hand, only 34 per cent of Oxford students who responded to the National Student Survey (NSS) 2016 described themselves as ‘satisfied’ with their student union, whereas 37 per cent described themselves as neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.
Across Higher Education Institutions in the UK the average satisfaction level with studnet unions was 62.3 per cent; top of the table was Leeds University Union, which had a 92 per cent satisfaction rating. Student unions at two other collegiate universities, Durham and Cambridge, were also around the bottom spots, with satisfaction rates at 35 and 37 per cent respectively.
OUSU VP Eden Bailey commented, “Most Students’ Unions, unlike OUSU, have physical facilities and resources encompassing bars, club nights, cafes alongside clubs and societies, and all manner of other things. We unfortunately don’t have this kind of space, visibility, or the funding to provide it. For most Oxford students, their College’s Common Room comes closer to the kind of status, facility, and familiarity that Students’ Unions at other universities have.
A huge challenge we face is that not many people realise that a number of the great things that common rooms do offer are facilitated by OUSU, from discount contraceptives to developing papers and other resources to lobby Colleges on important issues. This year we’ll be providing common rooms with more support than ever before, with a huge new training programme which will offer free training not just for common room presidents, but for students who want to get involved in everything from looking after a society’s finances to being trained as a first respondent to sexual violence.
A lot of our most crucial work for students is behind the scenes, and much of it confidential, for example negotiating with the University on issues to do with fees and funding, particularly in light of the government’s recent Higher Education Bill. A lot of what we achieve as student representatives on committees may not seem like particularly flashy or highly visible ‘wins’ but they make a huge difference to students’ access to and experience of education at Oxford. However, one thing we definitely want to work on this year is ensuring that all of our ‘wins’ are delivered and communicated through a variety of channels that reach an increasingly wide range of students.
Additionally, some of OUSU’s best work is through the support offered to students who are most marginalized by the University and Colleges, and this is reflected in the NSS score – we have notably higher ratings of satisfaction from students who identify as BME than as white, and from women than men.
So, in many ways, the NSS rating highlights that many students don’t know very well what OUSU does. So perhaps it’s not surprising we don’t get rated so highly. But in addition to expanding what we are already doing well, making this visible is something we are committed to improving.”
Publications such as the Times Higher Education have begun to speculate that a ‘new elite’ of popular universities might emerge from university rankings based on student satisfaction. In this year’s NSS results of the 24 universities to score 90 or above, only six are from the Russell Group.
Crayfish in the River Cherwell have caused the partial collapse of a wall belonging to Magdalen College. The wall, located alongside Addison Walk and near Magdalen Bridge, has been damaged by crayfish burrowing into it. The position of the wall on a bend in the river has made it suitable for the crayfish to take root there over a period of several years, causing severe structural damage.
Magadalen College have told Oxford City Council that the damage poses risk to the Grade-I listed Water Meadow, a popular area for riverside walks in Oxford. It is believed that the cost of repairing the damage will amount to thousands of pounds.
Proposed repair works include inserting underwater concrete supports and lining the wall with a trench sheet that will reduce future burrowing. Documents lodged with the city council by Magdalen College say, “The works will sensitively reinstate and stabilise the bank and ensure these grounds continue to remain in use.
Owing to the seriousness of the bank erosion – much of which is caused by burrowing crayfish and high flows over slumped clay – the professional advice received is that proposals put forward represent the only viable options.”
The American species of crayfish, Pacifastacus leniusculus, has invaded many British rivers and has been identified as a threat to the ecosystem of UK waterways by the Environment Agency and the Great British Non-Native Species Secretariat (NNSS). Pacifastacus Ieniusculus, also known as Signal Crayfish, were introduced to Britain in the 1970s after disease decimated the native population.
However, they have been identified as problematic due to their predatory behaviour and rapid breeding. Although a spokesperson from the Environment Agency said that cases of structural damage caused by the fish are rare, they have been known to burrow deep into river banks in order to hibernate during winter.
Attempts to reduce the population of Signal Crayfish by marketing them as a health food are yet to be successful.
Physicists at the Oxford Clarendon Laboratory have developed a highly precise quantum ‘Fredkin gate’, a building-block required to make a quantum computer, bringing us closer to making this theoretical super-computer a reality.
A quantum computer is a hypothesised, incredibly powerful machine capable of performing many large calculations simultaneously, in contrast to the desktops we are familiar with which compute far fewer at a time. It would make use of ‘qubits’, the quantum analogue of the digital bits we use today.
In traditional computing, ‘bits’ are units of information which can take the value 0 (‘off’) or 1 (‘on’) and which can be strung together to encode ‘words’. Performing a calculation involves electrical signals passing through ‘logic gates’ which change bits from 1 to 0 and from 0 to 1, acting as ‘on-off’ switches. With a quantum computer, however, the qubits make use of the quantum states of sub-atomic particles to store information. The strange quantum behaviour of such particles means that, as well as taking the value 0 and 1, the qubit can also exist in a third, superposed state – effectively existing as both 0 and 1.
The Oxford researchers have increased the precision of a quantum version of a three-bit logic gate known as a Fredkin gate to 99.9%, exceeding the theoretical threshold required for the manufacture of a quantum computer. The work makes use of a quantum-phenomenon known as ‘entanglement’: if something happens to one of a pair of entangled particles, the other particle is instantaneously and simultaneously affected, no matter how far away it is. Einstein called this intertwining of fates ‘spooky action at a distance’.
There remains much work to be done before quantum computers become a genuine possibility, but the viability of this crucial building-block is an encouraging step.
“To put this in context,”, comments co-author Prof David Lucas, “Quantum theory says that – as far as anyone has found so far – you simply can’t build a quantum computer at all if the precision drops below about 99%. At the 99.9% level you can build a quantum computer in theory, but in practice it could very difficult and thus enormously expensive. If, in the future, a precision of 99.99% can be attained, the prospects look a lot more favourable.”
Nonetheless this achievement is “another important milestone on the road to developing a quantum computer.”
Research paper: High Fidelity Quantum Logic Gates Using Trapped-Ion Hyperfine Qubits, C. J. Ballance, T. P. Harty, N. M. Linke, M. A. Sepiol, and D. M. Lucas, Phys. Rev. Lett. 117, 060504, 4 August 2016
For more science content, please see Cherwell’s sister publication Bang!, at http://www.bangscience.org
Representatives from student unions across the UK, including the Oxford University Students’ Union (OUSU), have written an open letter to the vice-chancellors of British universities asking them to oppose the government’s proposed Teaching Excellence Framework. The letter, published in the Guardian on Wednesday, criticises the ‘questionable metrics’ that TEF will be based on and the divisions that it will cause between higher education providers.
TEF was first proposed in a government green paper in November 2015. Although a final proposal has not been released, it has already been described as a radical shake-up of the British higher education system. It aims to make comparison between higher education providers easier for prospective students, but has also been linked to an increase in the number of institutions able to award degrees and the increase of tuition fees at top universities.
The letter criticising TEF was signed by OUSU president Jack Hampton as well as five of the organisation’s vice-presidents. They appeared on the list of signatories along with representatives from 49 other university student unions, including the Cambridge University Students’ Union, the University College London Students’ Union and the University of Bristol Students’ Union. The controversial president of the NUS, Malia Bouattia, signed the letter with twelve NUS vice-presidents and senior officers.
TEF will group higher education providers into three bands based on their performance in three ‘metrics’. These metrics are student satisfaction, retention (the number of students who complete their courses at the institution within the prescribed timeframe) and graduate employment. All of these metrics have come under a degree of criticism from universities and student groups as likely to be effected by factors other than teaching quality. It has also been suggested that measuring retention rates may lead to universities making their courses easier whilst graduate employment rates may discourage universities from offering niche or highly academic degrees.
In response to these criticisms, government advisors have proposed measuring these metrics qualitatively, via a team of experts, rather than quantitatively. Alternatively replacing the metrics with a measure of ‘value added’ or ‘learning gain’ has been discussed. If adopted, this may involve a test taken by students at the beginning of their course and repeated at the end, but there are currently no published details about how this would be implemented.
In the green paper ‘The Teaching Excellence Framework: Assessing quality in Higher Education’, published in February 2016, government advisors asked universities to engage in ‘speedy establishment of potentially viable metrics relating to learning gain’.
In its official response to the paper, Oxford University expressed concern about the division that TEF may place between teaching and research.
In a statement to Cherwell, OUSU commented, “We don’t believe that the TEF will have a positive impact on Oxford University, or on UK Higher Education as a whole. In its currently proposed form, the TEF is a broad-brush exercise that doesn’t account for differences in teaching across the sector, and given that undergraduate study at Oxford is based on the tutorial system and differs considerably from other institutions, we do not think that the TEF will account for this adequately.
“According to modelling conducted by the Times Higher Education based on the proposed metrics, Oxford ranked 4th on raw data, and 28th once benchmarking had taken place. This would put us in the Outstanding category, which means the University will be able to raise fees by the level of inflation. This has disastrous implications for access. Debt aversion is a known deterrent to prospective students; if the University is able to raise fees year on year, an Oxford education will become less and less accessible to many students from less advantaged backgrounds, making our community less diverse and impeding our ability to attract the best students regardless of background.
“The metrics that are currently being proposed are the results of the NSS and DLHE surveys. We believe that neither student satisfaction rankings nor employment and salary data of leavers six months after graduation are reliable or robust indicators of the quality of teaching in an institution. DLHE data in particular has been shown to reflect the background and demographics of the student population more than the quality of the education they received. Attempting to shoehorn teaching excellence into a narrow definition based on these criteria is not only reductive, it is also damaging to UK Higher Education as a whole.
“As general principles, we welcome increased transparency and accountability of academic provision within HE – it is important to make sure that universities are providing excellent quality teaching to their students. However, there are ulterior motives at play in the reforms heralded by the government’s White Paper and HE Bill. There is an underlying assumption to the TEF, demonstrated by the link to fee increases, that a better education should cost more. This will result in a differentiated fee system across HE, creating a hierarchy within the sector that will lead prospective students to choose where to study based on cost, rather than quality.
“We are fully committed to an Oxford that is as accessible and inclusive as possible. We oppose the TEF because we believe that it will have a catastrophic effect on access. Raising fees in the way proposed through TEF puts the burden on the student, rather than the government, to cover the costs of a university education. Oxford is already an expensive place to live and study; if fees consistently increase at the rate of inflation, an Oxford degree will become exponentially more unaffordable for many prospective students.”
As Constantine Louloudis and the British men’s four team powered over the finish line to comfortably take gold this afternoon, it completed another page in an impressive and historic week for Oxonian Olympians.
In truth, the result of the final was not really in doubt. With the power to pull away from rivals Australia in the final 500m, and Australia never holding the lead over the British team let alone one big enough to hold off the inevitable powerful final push, Britain’s fifth gold of the games and their fifth gold in a row in this particular event was as comfortable as any other.
Australia battled hard, and offered all the questions they could have, but Louloudis – who is a graduate in classics from Trinity College – and his team had the answers and brought Britain up to fourth in medal table as they seek to take advantage of a reduced Russian cohort at the Rio Games.
Louloudis’ accomplishment was not the only praiseworthy exploit from Oxonians in Rio. A comprehensive 31-7 win over Kenya for Great Britain’s Rugby 7s team led by Tom Mitchell provided a comfortable start to the Oxford graduate’s 2016 Olympics campaign. A narrow 21-19 victory against an impressive Japan, who had previously beaten New Zealand further strengthened British hopes before a win by the same score line over the All Blacks secured a quarter final berth.
After that first victory over Kenya, Britain wouldn’t enjoy any comfort throughout the rest of the tournament. A dramatic quarter final against Argentina, who missed a seemingly straightforward drop goal attempt to seal the match, before Tom Mitchell struck the post, finally ended with the latest of match-winning tries. Their semi-final with South Africa was no less tense; scores first from the South Africa and then Britain on either side of half time were separated only by the Springbok’s missed conversion. Brave defence from Britain maintained the lead and, by the final whistle, the victory for the British team, who had only been together for ten weeks before the Games.
Though the final did not pan out as planned, with pre-tournament favourites Fiji putting on an imperious display to cruise to a 43-7 victory, Britain and Tom Mitchell have it all to be proud of in securing silver in the first Olympic Rugby sevens tournament and losing to a faultless display of rugby that earned Fiji their first ever Olympic medal in any sport.
Around the games, other Oxonian athletes will have to wait to see what successes may lie ahead. Andrew Triggs-Hodge and Paul Bennett qualified first in their heat of the men’s coxed eight to put themselves comfortably into tomorrow’s final and surely in with a shout of winning a medal. Similarly, Zoe de Toledo coxed the women’s eight team into the final courtesy of a second-place finish in their heat.
Meanwhile, Dan Fox and the British men’s hockey team haven’t had the best start to their Olympic campaign. Losses to Australia and Belgium, in addition to a draw against New Zealand have left them with a solitary win with one game to spare in their group, sitting fifth of six and needing to finish in the top four to qualify for the quarter finals. A win against Spain tonight in their final game should be enough if Belgium get Britain out of their hole and continue their 100% record against New Zealand.
When I saw Circleville, Circlevalley in Oxford, I was expecting the host of issues one associates with a pre-Edinburgh showing – surprisingly, it was close to faultless. Circleville, Circlevalley follows the storylines of four characters caught in the kaleidoscopic narrative cast by the self-made drama therapist Ellen (Rebecca Hamilton), whose own character strikes the appropriate balance between transparency and opacity to suit her role as the author and agent of the events that follow. There is a cutting combination of witty and thought-provoking material, courtesy of writer Lamorna Ash, alongside director Sammy Glover who translates it effectively onto the stage.
This piece deserves high merit as a piece of new writing. It provides a timeless exploration of the human compulsion, and necessity, to tell stories, whilst commenting on the abysmal failure of contemporary society and politics to make space for such story telling. Furthermore, Ash constructs her characters with a touch that beckons the audience to instantly empathise. Their humanity is established through a simple paintbrush stroke of authenticity that quickly situates them as ‘familiar faces’ in the audiences’ eye.
This is compounded by nuances in dialogue that maintains a sense of spontaneity and surprise in the action – bringing them to life for the first time on the stage. Ash’s writing feels particularly timely and pertinent when dealing with mental health – overbrimming with unconventional insights into our perception of stigmatised mental illness, and how we cope with it.
The writing’s original and charming potential is carried through in performance. The well-structured character’s of Ash’s play are not wasted upon the actors who embody them. Their consistency and focus in maintaining these nuances should be highlighted, particularly under the pressure of such an intimate space that required their interaction with the audience. This will not be a review that sings the merit of particular actors.
The adjective most fitting to the performances of Higgins, Levan, Hamilton, Saraf and Jesper- Jones is ‘well-sitched’. All are air-tight in their individual portrayals whilst seamlessly inter-woven to each other as an ensemble.
The performance maintained a coherency, through the seamless harmony of these unique and idiosyncratic characters, thanks to the skilful hand of director Sammy Glover. Although Glover decided to include Circleville, Circlevalley in the ever-growing group of Oxford-bred plays that are making physical theatre an integral part of the performance – Glover’s use of it is well-executed and original.
The use of physical theatre, rather than just being a crowd-pleaser, is used to highlight the thematic details of the play – moving between moments of physical harmony and discord like a well-timed pendulum. Moreover, the physical theatre is appropriate to a certain energy that is netted throughout the piece.
The performance, seeking to immerse the audience into the drama therapy class, creates an absorbing sense of informality whilst successfully avoiding the risk of coming off as unrehearsed.
The set and technical aspects of the play were fitting with this absorbing sense of informality. The small space, dressed minimalistically and lit with imperceptible artistry by the neon lights of the room, achieved a successful deconstruction of the fourth wall that gave the space for immersion, but also reflection. My one qualm with the performance would be the use of sound, the only ‘theatrical’ element to what is, otherwise, a play that purposely chooses not to rely on the conventional trickery of the stage.
Although I see the metaphorical relevance in integrating an ‘unnatural’ use of stagecraft as the script explores the power of the imagination, its sometimes faltering function was quite jarring in the, otherwise, clockwork timing of the performance. Although the use of sound adds drama and slots in with the general message of the play, sloppy timing compromised the enrapturing childish energy that carries the audience through the story. The sound is the one instance where informality would not add to Circleville, Circlevalley’s charm. Although there are some necessary tweaks to be made.
My hope for this piece of theatre is that, as it trundles up to the Scottish capital, it works not to iron itself out into professional quality but, rather, to maintain the verve that made it feel so fresh in Oxford. This is one definitely worth catching at the Fringe.
There is a sense of real creative freedom in working with a piece of new writing – this atmosphere filled the air when I entered the rehearsal room for the upcoming Edinburgh show Canon Warriors. Fresh from its critically acclaimed run at the Oxford New Writing Festival, Canon Warriors is an odd, sincere, and heart-warming examination of queer identities pushed onto the fringes of society.
The story centres around Fleur (Imogen Allen) and Punch (Livi Dunlop), who are illegally living in a council owned beach house on the Kentish coast, whilst eking out a living as “the premier feminist puppeteers in Thanet – the only feminist puppeteers in Thanet”. The puppets, Sid and Dog, are used by Fleur and Punch to perform patriarchy smashing plays – tearing apart a literary canon (hence the name) which underrepresents women’s voices, queer voices, trans voices, to name a few.
The drama of the play occurs over the course of 4 days running up to the airing of one of these productions in a village hall, whilst Fleur and Punch’s relationship suffers through the strains of an impinging council worker (Matthew Shore), an impending winter, and the inevitable struggles of living in a beach hut.
This may well sound rather bizarre, but do not fear – an ostensibly surreal premise is backed in spades by the writing and the performances.
The relationship between Fleur and Punch stands at the centre of this production. Allen brings a curious blend of gritted-teeth surety, and childlike vulnerability to Fleur – a queer woman unable to express her identity at home or at university, but who seems on edge in the only place that allows her to be herself. Dunlop’s Punch seems comparatively detached from reality, prone to breaking into outbursts of puppetry during ordinary conversation. At one point, the puppet Dog was supposedly responsible for an incident with some M&S ham, getting both the puppeteers banned from the shop – as Fleur insists, exasperatedly – “it was you, you control Dog… My hand puppet made me do it will not get you off for shoplifting.”
To pull back to our expectations of how a piece of new writing might handle these sorts of characters, the first word that might come into your mind might be ‘zany’ – in that horrible, infantilising, packaged, ‘kooky’, ‘quirky’, Zooey Deschanel vein which was so culturally omnipresent about six years ago.
I am happy to report that these ludicrous puppet wielding characters feel anything but zany – they feel vulnerable, and palpable, they feel like their more extreme idiosyncrasies are less about getting a laugh out of the audience, and more about desperately for searching tools to communicate just how hard it can be to exist and flourish on the fringes of a society where the odds seem so stacked against you.
Speaking to director Ell Potter and writer Hannah Greenstreet, I got some taste of this drive to create a theatrical space where oft maligned or tokenistic voices could express themselves in and on their own terms. This isn’t an ideal relationship, it isn’t a relationship primarily defined by its queerness – it is a flawed and painful relationship expressed with stunning realism, despite the bizarre medium of its self expression.
The characters themselves are pointedly certain in the uphill nature of their struggle – as Punch reflects, she is “a travelling show-woman, the first in a long line of show men”. And the final great act of this piece is that there are no guarantees that it will all end well – the strains of reality on the space within the beach house will not necessarily be overcome – but I suppose you’ll have to go and see it at the Fringe to find out.
