Wednesday 9th July 2025
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Classics Faculty relaunch Latin outreach

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Latin GCSE is staging a comeback in Oxfordshire in 2015 thanks to an innovative outreach programme being re-launched by Oxford University’s Classics Faculty.

The notoriously difficult subject is currently only taught in three Oxfordshire state schools but Oxford Classics Faculty Latin Teaching Scheme (OXLAT) will offer support to 17 local state schools that want to start teaching the subject. 

The scheme was originally established in 2008, but was suspended in 2012 when its funding was withdrawn. The Stonehouse Educational Foundation is funding the re-launch as part of a wider national initiative to increase Latin study.

Oxford’s Regius Professor of Greek, Christopher Pelling, was appointed by former Education Secretary Michael Gove to lead the nationwide increase in Latin study. He praised OXLAT’s potential to broaden Oxford’s undergraduate admissions and enrich state school education. 

He said,“I was very lucky myself to go to a terrific state school which gave me my own opportunities, including that of learning classical languages. I am so pleased that we can offer something similar to a new generation.”

“We regard this scheme as very important because we know that there are many children out there that don’t have the same opportunities to study Latin or Classics as their counterparts would have had a generation or so ago.This programme is at least something we can do for those in our own back yard.”

The 30 participants will be taught two hours of Latin every Saturday morning for two and a half years before taking the exam. It is hoped many of them will go on to study the subject at A-Level or university.

Gabriel Naughton, who is reading Classics at St John’s College, took part in the original scheme and earned an A* in Latin GCSE in 2010. He said the program contributed significantly to his subsequent academic success.

Gabriel commented, ‘More than any open day or Oxbridge talk the course was responsible for my application to Oxford as a pupil from a state school.”

“It gave me the confidence to know that I would be able to embark upon a degree at Oxford, a degree heavily weighted towards language learning, and be able to hold my own amongst some students who had enjoyed teaching in ancient languages consistently since primary school.”

French and Italian student Emma Obertelli also took Latin at GCSE and A-Level. She thinks the subject is good training for any budding linguist.

She told Cherwell, “Latin gave me a really good grasp of language and structure. The history and literature are also really interesting. Most people don’t get to study the Romans in much detail after primary school so it is a good opportunity.”

Emma wasn’t sure that Latin was the best way for the university to use its outreach programme.

She said, “While I really enjoyed studying Latin and got a lot out of it I think there are loads of other areas that are more important and would be more beneficial to state schools.”

Many other current Oxford students claimed they hadn’t missed much by not taking the ancient language at GCSE.

St Edmund Hall Pharmacology postgraduate Tom McLean studied Latin for a year at Whitney’s The Henry Box School but decided not to pursue the subject at GCSE.

He commented, “I enjoyed the part of Latin where you learned about civilisation but I found the language study pretty dry. I had heard that the GCSE was really hard and I didn’t really want to take another language because I didn’t really see how it would benefit me in the long run.”

“These days I kind of regret not doing the GCSE. It’s not because it would have helped me, but I liked the history and it might have been interesting to learn more about that.”

St Hugh’s PGCE student William Irving, who took compulsory Latin lessons between Year 7 and Year 9 at Reigate Grammar School, regretted not appreciating the subject’s benefits when he dropped it before GCSE. 

William, who read Biology at Leeds University, said: “I didn’t enjoy studying Latin when I was at school because I thought it was a dead language that I wouldn’t ever have to use.

“I didn’t realise that studying it would help with my other languages at school. Now that I’m a bit older I have a better appreciation of how helpful it can be to study Latin.”

Review: Enemy

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★★★★☆
Four Stars

Somewhere between that spine-tingling sense of déjà vu and severe clinical paranoia lies the tone for Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy, which draws its plot from José Saramago’s O Homem Duplicado – literally, “The Duplicated Man”.

The bleak, morose feel of Richard Ayoade’s doppelganger dark comedy, The Double, is here, but Enemy is less interested in the comic, and more concerned with some Orwellian sense of a society controlled by fear. Jake Gyllenhaal is Adam, a history professor of tragic isolation (despite a seemingly long-term relationship with Mélanie Laurent). Gyllenhaal is a masterful chameleon, and the reserved, introverted subtlety of Adam is as far from the seedy, electrically creepy Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler as you could imagine. The role is doubly juicy for the actor because – as the original title suggests – Adam meets his doppelganger (a charismatic actor named Anthony Claire) and Gyllenhaal of course plays him too. It’s a delicious role for any actor to play two contrasting figures – two sides of the same coin, to exhaust that cliché – within the same space, as Nicolas Cage demonstrated so aptly in Adaptation and Jeremy Irons did in Dead Ringers.

Adam first spies his apparent clone when watching a film on the recommendation of a colleague. It’s a double-take moment, and he pauses the screen to get a closer look. Immediately, as one might expect, he googles the actor in question and is flabbergasted to find that they appear to be exact carbon copies of each other. But the story doesn’t end there for Adam. This isn’t going to become just some anecdote he tells to people at work (he doesn’t really talk to many people anyway). He becomes bent on tracking down this actor – this mirror – and seeing for himself whether they truly are identical. Adam has no plan, he has no grand vision of what he’s going to do when he finds Anthony, but he knows that this is something he has to do. He later explains to the actor what motivated him when they finally do meet: ever so simply, it was that he “needed to know”.

It’s a harrowingly entrancing scene when Adam and Anthony come face-to-face for the first time. Aside from sharing the same face, they have the same voice, they even have identical scars on their abdomen. It’s as if they were separated at birth, but they weren’t. They are a completely coincidental phenomenon. Anthony, hot-headed and lecherous, is elated by the prospect and wants to use this unique opportunity to arrange a sexual liaison with Adam’s girlfriend, Mary (pretending to be Adam). Adam offers little resistance and proceeds to break into Anthony’s apartment and lie with his girlfriend, Helen (Sarah Gadon). Adam isn’t interested in sex. He just wants to know what it’s like to live in another person’s shoes.

Villeneuve doesn’t get hung up on trying to tell us what Adam needed to know, or why he needed to know it so badly. Adam’s actions require no logical coherent trail of thought because he isn’t dealing with a logical coherent situation. We’re not supposed to just happen upon our doubles in the middle of our everyday lives. We’re not supposed to feel like there’s somebody else living in the exact same body that we are. We have grown up in a society that has repeatedly told us to value and accept our individuality, because we are all different. Clearly, our society is not one Villeneuve is interested in exploring – not literally, anyway.

The central irony is that Adam – a history professor, supposedly an expert on totalitatian governments – cannot see the web within which he entangles himself so deeply. He lectures about how totalitarian states execute their authority so well because they censor any means of individual expression. Isn’t that what’s happening to Adam? By encountering his doppelganger – his exact replica – he is now the furthest thing from “individual” a human being could be.

It wouldn’t be right to talk about this film without mentioning the ubiquitous spiders. Yes, spiders. They continuously crop up throughout the picture. At the beginning of the film, we see a naked woman on the verge of crushing a live tarantula with her stiletto. At another point, a monumentally huge spindly spider crawls across the Toronto skyline. These arachnids come and go with seemingly no purpose, and certainly no explanation. I won’t spoil the perplexing final shot, but yes – as you’ve probably guessed – it involves a spider. So why spiders? Are they a symbol of something? What do they represent? It’s probably got something to do with webs – metaphorically – and how Adam doesn’t realise just how sticky the totalitarian webs of his society are until he is well and truly stuck in them. In any case, the spiders make for an intriguing, if at times distracting, symbol.

When Adam, curious, subtly asks his mother (Isabella Rossellini) if he ever had a twin, she replies very assertively: “You are my only son, I am your only mother”. But this isn’t about mothers and sons. This isn’t about blood relations. This is about our relationships with strangers – people we have never met, people who we’d assume couldn’t be further from us. Villeneuve brandishes a society wherein to meet one’s identical double is not the most fascinating or bizarre thing to happen, but to be happy, to be self-contented and to have no desire to want to exchange places with and live for a moment as that double – that would be a very unusual thing indeed. 

Preview: Richard Parker

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The cast has only two characters: Richard Parker 1, and Richard Parker 2. Poor Player Productions’ Richard Parker, directed by James Watts, and starring Jake Boswall and Ieuan Perkins, is a play about two unfamiliar men with the same name thrown together on the deck of a ship at sea. Their chance encounter is one part in a chain of events linking the two Richards. Being stranded at sea for without food or fresh-water, the two undergo an intensely cathartic and revelatory ordeal with their relationship exploring the links between fate and coincidence.

Jake Boswall as Richard Parker 2, with his wearied cabin-fever and voice of sanity, brilliantly complements the frivolous and enigmatically nonchalant Richard Parker1. We, the audience, can identify with Boswall’s physically and emotionally drained character, prone to panic and melancholy, whereas Perkins’ Parker offers an extremely watchable and comically immature characterization in the face of palpable hardship. Both characters are steeped in writer Owen Thomas’s comic style, an incongruous surrealism in wild and uncomfortable crises. Such a style is exemplified in Parker 1’s melancholy lament about his first experience of death, which he wistfully explains was when he poked a piece of chicken down a plug hole. Parker 2’s ignorance of his own character flaws, and his inability (or is it refusal?) to grasp the gravity of the situation lends his character to some hilariously absurd moments of normality and calm in the storm.

Such conflicts of character give rise to a black comedy which releases itself in the intensity of the situation. Ieuan Jones aptly described his relationship with Jake Boswall’s character almost being “domestic” at times. There’s much truth in that, despite the two being relative strangers to each other; their physical and psychological isolation forces them to clash and meld their personalities, much to amusement of those watching. There’s an evident rapport between Boswall and Jones which makes this two-man play first and foremost about their fascinating relationship.

Central to the play is the clash between chance and fate, with Richard Parker 2 obsessed by fate and historical coincidence. The mystery of what has brought these two stranded namesakes together promises to hold a gripping attraction throughout the progression of the narrative.

The script itself is sharp and memorable, and I have no doubt it contains many a quotable line, and it crucially enhances the atmosphere of discord, tension, fear and thought. Under the direction of James Watts, the lines have been lifted to convince the audience very early on to invest in these characters and their relationship. This is best seen in an electrified moment in which Parker 1 deceives Parker 2 by dramatically claiming to see a shark in the water, in order to eat the last sardine of Parker 2’s tin – which he absurdly refuses to share with the deliriously starving Parker 1.

The play is going to be performed in the intimate – to recycle its overused epithet – Burton Taylor Studio, whose minimal design and space should definitely contribute to the claustrophobic restlessness and to the personality clash over the mundane and existential which should make this show a raucously laugh inducing treat of black comedy.

Richard Parker will be performed from Tuesday to Saturday of Second Week at the Burton Taylor Studio, at 19:30.

Review: Into the Woods

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Into the Woods has just hit UK cinemas, offering a silver screen take on the much loved Stephen Sondheim musical. Starring big names like Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Johnny Depp, there’s a big chance that at least one actor you might like is starring in it. At first glance, this might seem like a box office gimmick but in fact it’s very much the performances of these much acclaimed names that makes the film such a delight. The film follows much of the original musical’s plot: we take the well known stories of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel, and cross them over in a story focusing on a childless couple that is offered a bargain by a witch. We see the consequences of each of the characters’ desires, whatthey must go through to get their happy ending and, of course, what happens after that…

Of all the things that first hits you about the film (aside from the constant music, of course), is its colour palette and tone. Draped in dark blues, murky golds and blacks, this is no fluffy Disney story. Into the Woods is called that for a reason – the woods are dark, dangerous and conjure up all manner of things. Aside from the bright glowing red of Red Riding Hood’s cloak, Rob Marshall has evidently gone for a specific tone for a reason, and it works beautifully. 

Though I’m a fan of the original musical via the soundtrack, I’ve never seen it live in the theatre and therefore cannot offer a direct comparison. However, Rob Marshall’s translation of the many storylines onto the screen is successful. Some stories that are given more time in the musical are perhaps a little lacking: the ending and the development of Rapunzel’s story, for example. I don’t necessarily think it cheapens the points that are being made in the film, but in comparison to the musical, it makes it a little weaker. The scene changes are smart and snappy, whilst the choreography is cleverly done so that there’s no lagging time in which the audience can get bored. It’s easy to be held in rapture all the way through.

This brings me to my point about the performances offered in the film. With such a big ensemble cast it’s easy to lose some people along the way – I sorely missed what Christine Baranski and Simon Russell Beale could have brought to the table had they been given more time. But that’s just part and parcel of it. However, characters like Chris Pine’s Prince or Billy Magnussen’s Prince’s Brother fill up their limited screentime with incandescent performances that have more depth than other actors might give. It’s fair to say that the four main leads are formidable: Meryl Streep is untouchable but so are Emily Blunt, James Corden and Anna Kendrick, all veterans of musical and costume drama who we knew would be able to accomplish their roles when we heard they were cast.

Overall, there is much to like about Into the Woods. At first, I was worried about the running time, and how this might alienate those with no predisposition to musicals. Coming from a fairly musical-averse household, two hours was not met with enthusiasm. I felt that the sharp characterisations of Cinderella and the Prince amongst others were great enough to make the material compelling, enabling the time to fly by in a blur of excitement. For certain, the ending (and by that I generally mean, from the second half) is not as dark or brooding as the original musical. That being said, Into the Woods still manages to place itself in the better half of musical film adaptations thanks to a strong cast and just as strong production: see it if you have the chance. 

Review: Testament of Youth

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Amidst the swarm of collections and first week tutorials, you may find yourself wondering what all the academic toil and strife is for. Testament of Youth, based on the memoirs of Vera Brittain, gives us the perspective we need at this time of tears, presenting the tale of a fearless young woman whose brother has to insistently persuade her father to let her apply to Oxford. The First World War interrupts her dreams and she leaves Somerville
College to give, love and lose all in the War. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, this is a film of remarkable hope. Despite the fact that other, perhaps more beautiful, Oxford colleges posed as Somerville, it is nevertheless a thrill in the cinema to spot the streets that are well-worn by our feet. In the context of such bravery, however, it is humbling to think that we have the privilege to follow in the footsteps of so many students who have aspired to such great things.

The film offers insight into the challenges faced by women trying to break down the barriers of inequality. “Her degree won’t even be officially recognised by the University, you know,” Vera’s brother says to her father as he pleads with him to let her sit the entrance exam. Without formal tuition or schooling, Vera has a strong disadvantage. But nevertheless, with the face of bravery which she wore for the rest of her life, she remains determined. When staring at a Latin paper, which she was not expecting, she instead writes her entrance exam in German.

Swedish actress Alicia Vikander (Anna Karenina) stands out with her effortlessly graceful acting and enigmatic eyes, which captivate the audience’s imagination. In a Q&A at the British Film Industry on Monday, she commented, “It’s rare that a strong female lead comes up, so when you see one, you just grab at it,” and that this was a “female perspective I’ve never come across. As a woman, I connected greatly.”

Kit Harington (Pompeii, Game of Thrones), Colin Morgan (Merlin), and Taron Egerton (Kingsman), play her lover, her friend, and her brother respectively, all giving strong performances. Golden Globe nominated Dominic West (The Affair, Pride, The Hour) also brought charisma to the screen as Vera Brittain’s well-to-do father and mill owner. 

The director, James Kent, and producer, Rosie Alison, were present at the BFI event, along with Baroness Shirley Williams, the daughter of Vera Brittain. Baroness Williams astutely remarked, “Inspiring figures are those that are
not conventional.” The director hoped that the “glorious young men [of the film would] come alive again and [will] never be forgotten by the new generation.”

More than anything else, however, what truly brought Testament of Youth together was Rob Hardy’s incredibly moving cinematography, especially in his evocative shooting of landscapes and the perfectly capitulated chaos of the battlefront. Testament of Youth brings Vera Brittain’s searing memoirs of the First World War to the cinema in an ethereally crisp and cathartic manner. It is rare to find a tale so truthfully poignant and moving, and cinematography so flawlessly breath-taking.

John Williams’ Stoner: ahead of its time

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John Williams’ novel Stoner was one of the most widely read books of 2013, yet 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of its first publication. Initially well-reviewed but virtually unknown in the intervening years, Stoner’s rise to fame and acclaim was all the more remarkable for being prompted almost exclusively by word of mouth amongst readers. 

Williams’ style is understated, subtle, even unprepossessing, so it is perhaps understandable why it was so overlooked. You only need to compare it with the type of literature which made a resounding splash in the same year – Sylvia Plath’s Ariel, for example – to see how it missed the recognition it was due. Stoner is about a quiet, patient man and his realistically slow trajectory from manual labour to academic work – a man who will seldom talk about his sorrows, which are whispered rather than screamed behind less than mysterious narration, though in no less agony.

Certainly the treatment of some issues in the book were ahead of its time: the purpose of academia and disability discrimination take up a substantial part of it, though this does not adequately explain why a novel previously all but ignored took off so spectacularly in the Twenty First Century, when much of its content revolves around the timelessly relevant subject of relationships broken by an unforgiving society. Indeed, Stoner has achieved success far beyond what Williams ever hoped for when he told his publisher in 1963, “I have no illusions that it will be a ‘best-seller’ or anything like that.” But a bestseller it now is.

The characters of Stoner’s wife, daughter and mistress stick in the mind as particularly well-drawn. A deeply touching passage illuminates his daughter’s nature, and the reasons for her miserable dependency on alcohol, “alien to the world, it had to live where it could not be at home; avid for tenderness and quiet, it had to feed upon indifference and callousness and noise.” 

Completely incidentally, this may espress something about the rise of the book itself: it needed the appropriate soil for its natural merits to bloom in the minds of its readers. Perhaps our society is more willing to express its feelings of alienation than was the case 50 years ago, possibly in light of a pervasive digital age – and so is far more receptive to Stoner’s melancholy.

However, if anything encapsulates the character of the book – its quiet courage and empathy in the face of a bleak reality – it is surely the last few days that Stoner shares with his mistress before propriety pulls them apart. He watches “with an immeasurable sadness their last effort of gaiety, which was like a dance that life makes upon the body of death.” 

Loading the Canon

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Though he would dispute the title, the philosopher John Gray is contemporary Britain’s arch-pessimist – that is, if we set him against the standards of the winsome, optimistic humanism de rigueur found in most of the great thinkers alive today.

A former professor at Oxford and then LSE, Gray thinks that almost all of our beliefs about ourselves are total fictions. The most widely held and detestable of modern fictions are philosophical humanism and (liberal and illiberal) progressivism, which Gray sees as the petulant, bastard children of a debased Christianity. Most of the principles that Christianity bequeathed to the Enlightenment and modern humanism – that we are free, conscious and rational beings endowed with inalienable rights etc – wither and fade when the Deity is removed from the picture.

Gray argues that humanists can’t go on about inalienable human rights when there is no reasonable metaphysical basis for them. They can’t say that we are innately gifted with supreme Reason when the lesson of modern evolutionary biology is that our minds evolved at the behest of natural forces whose purposes were anything but the pursuit of truth and reason.

Because of this, he sees all attempts to ameliorate or improve our benighted condition as the hopelessly flawed spasms of a demented species. The notion that irreversible ethical advances can exist in human history is to Gray a lie. This is not to say that he therefore opposes all attempts to improve the conditions of people whose lives were once blighted by intolerance and oppression. 

Rather, he opposes the sanctimonious rhetoric of progressives who see all history up to the present enlightened moment as an aberration. “The good life,” he writes, “is not found in dreams of progress, but in coping with tragic contingencies… it means seeking peace – without just hoping for a world without war. It means cherishing freedom – in the knowledge that it is an interval between anarchy and tyranny.”

Gray’s gift for the frigid aphorism is second-to-none. At the end of Straw Dogs, his most famous book, he writes with dark and bracing assurance, “Nearly all philosophies, most of religion and much of science testify to the desperate, unwearying concern for the salvation of mankind… other animals do not need a purpose in life.”

It would do much, in my opinion, for our happiness and our sanity, to think on these words.

Rembrandt: The late works at the National Gallery

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Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), a master of the Dutch Golden Age, was known for his extraordinary treatment of light and the psychological depth of his portraiture.

The National Gallery is staging a landmark retrospective in his honour and it is a barrage of masterpiece after masterpiece. But breathtaking though this is, it is not what makes The National Gallery’s latest exhibition so captivating. The exhibition is much more than a spotlight on the greatness of Rembrandt’s work, it is a trip into the shadows that stalk his masterpieces. What is offered to the viewer is the tragedy behind the triumph: the broke, widowed, rejected and dejected Rembrandt. The dim first room (“self scrutiny”) feels like a church. The crowds, heaving though they are, soon become still and silent on entering. Sad and distant eyes peer worriedly back from the paintings. Before us: Rembrandt in 1659 (figure 1).

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Three years previously he had declared bankruptcy, a year before his beloved art collection fetched almost nothing at auction, and that same year the Amsterdam Painters’ guild enforced a rule that banned him from trading. In the year to come, he was to be forced to sell his home and move. By 1669, Rembrandt’s eyes look resigned (figure 2). Since his last self-portrait he had experienced the humiliation of being out-commissioned by his former students and the grief of living through the death of his son Titus. Seeing the tenderness of the late works against the background of Rembrandt’s personal tragedy made for an utterly compelling view of the artist.

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The second room (“experimental technique”), however, offers an alternative, with Rembrandt rising before the viewer looking forebodingly in control (figure 3). In this self portrait, two circles enigmatically shadow him: a calculated show of defiance; where the painter is down but not out. Among other professional fiascoes, Rembrandt had gone out of fashion. His loose brushwork clashed with the tight realism that was then in vogue. Accused of aging self-indulgence, Rembrandt chose to paint himself with these two mysterious circles behind him, referring to a legend that the Italian artist Giotto had such technical command that he could draw a perfect circle free hand. Rembrandt stands before us painted in defiantly loose brushwork, with perfect hand drawn circles behind him. His face almost dares his critics to say he’s lost it.

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However, pushing the boundaries of style and technique flew in the face of the establishment, and his desperate situation. Rembrandt could not afford with his debts to defy the established style publicly. Nonetheless, curator Betsy Wieseman has assembled a rich collection of sketches, etchings and prints that give us an insight into how audacious Rembrandt could be. One sketch shows a sleeping female nude drawn with simple spare brushwork. It could easily pass for a Japanese Zen painting. The economy of the lines and the delicacy of the brushwork is truly something to behold. It is a testament to Rembrandt’s bravery that this stalwart of European classicism chose to experiment with a form totally removed from his native context at a time when it could mean destitution.

This boldness was not just a private experiment. When Rembrandt was finally thrown a bone and asked to paint a large work for Amsterdam’s new city hall; the result so outraged his employer that before the year was up, the painting was chucked out. You can see why. The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (figure 4), which could be found in a later room focusing on light, is almost an impressionist work. The ghostlike conspirators huddle around their deformed leader, his missing eye illuminated by the soft, yellow light. It’s an almost sinister (and given the context) most definitely ballsy depiction of a proud Dutch legend.

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The impressionistic tendencies are most uncannily expressed in The Jewish Bride (figure 5), which has Rembrandt portraying a young couple mornfully caressing each other. He heaps squares of paint onto the man’s sleeve using a pallet knife. It lends the painting a tactile quality, which transmits the aching sensuality of the scene. But it’s also highly poignant: what the trouble is, we do not know.

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It is always in the eyes where we see Rembrandt’s emotional and psychological depth. It’s the eyes that animate The Syndics (figure 6), which were to be found in “observations of everyday life”, one of the last rooms. Here, a business meeting is rendered not only interesting but actually exciting, giving a sense of movement and ambiguity to the figures. The most striking gaze is that of the Apostle St Bartholomew, whom we see staring into some undefined point beyond the canvas with a stern gaze. Yet something gentler and sadder emerges the more you look at him. It’s completely captivating.

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Rembrandt painted the world with a passion that drove him to experiment in visionary ways. This was coupled with a sympathy that captured the most intimate moments of the human experience. He endeavored to do this at a time when the world he portrayed was decidedly against him. What emerges from this struggle is not resentment or anger, but a profound sense of humanity and vitality. It captured Bartholomew’s gaze, it touched the hand of the Jewish Bride, and it caressed the lines of the nude’s body. Most of all, it filled Rembrandt’s eyes. 

New term, new Audrey

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Just before Hilary term comes crashing down on us like a ton of disillusioned first years, we get our first glimpse at the comedic salvation that will be on offer for our weary and work-worn selves in later weeks. The first Audrey of term offered sketches, stand-up and songs, and if you missed your chance this time, fortuitously we are able to give you all the inside information, as well as hints of what to expect at later Audreys and in one-off shows from the Revue.

There are plenty of familiar faces, with Georgia Bruce, Will Hislop, David Meredith, Jack Chisnall and Barney Fishwick putting in predictably strong performances, but their contributions are balanced by other equally capable comics at varying stages of their careers, from seasoned performers to relative newcomers.

The sketch comedy is, on the whole, stronger than the stand up, and provokes bigger laughs from the audience. This might be in part due to the change of venue to the Old Fire Station, where the more theatrical atmosphere gels more easily with the sketch comedy that is the Revue’s forte . This isn’t to say there aren’t some great solo performances – I can’t truthfully find fault with anyone who, as George McGoldrick does, tells me a whimsical, Gruffalo-inspired story about the deep web – but what’s notable about the successes is the ways in which they push the limits of what you might expect from traditional stand up, one example being Alex Fox’s guffaw-inducing piece about a dysfunctional upper class family in which he plays, well, everyone. As well as offering us something new, these examples also seem to fit with more ease into the Audrey format, possibly due to their more sketch-like, less traditional, nature.

The show is almost exclusively new material, which, whilst conceivably disappointing for anyone who has a favourite sketch, must overall be seen as a massive point in the Revue’s favour, as it demonstrates that comedic invention is in far from short supply. There’s also something for every sense of humour, ranging from the surreal, to the observational, to the satirical – there’s a fantastic #notallmen sketch which earned some enthusiastic woops from women in the audience.

As far as I could tell from my subjective experience of events, the audience seemed to be having a wonderful time, everyone finding this early offering from Oxford’s comedians as side-splittingly enjoyable as their previous endeavours.

Based on the initial signs, the comedy forecast for Hilary term looks exceptionally good – great news in this most grey and miserable of academic seasons – and if you haven’t had the chance to experience the Revue in action before, I’d definitely recommend it, although make sure to get in early – there weren’t any tickets available on the door at the point I arrived, and people were being turned away.

Historically, the Footlights might have had more of the fame, but with the talent of the current Revue members, I honestly would not be surprised if that were to change some time in the near future.