The Oxford Revue, composed of Emily Honey, David Meredith, Will Truefitt, Alex Fox, Rachel Watkeys-Dowie and George Mather, and directed by Barney Iley, are back with a bang this week with a show at the Keble O’Reilly which promises to be their “best one ever”.

Their show with the Cambridge Footlights and Durham Revue in 2^nd Week at the Playhouse went swimmingly, with Will telling me they “yoked all the groups together in a much more coherent way” than previous shows. “A lot of that was down to Barney’s vision”. It was “tricky” because the Oxford Playhouse is geared towards everything except sketch comedy.

Their 6^th week show is “all new material, mixed in with comedy acts from around Oxford.” The first act will be a different performer every night, handpicked by the Revue from numerous auditionees. The Revue is subsidizing them to go the Edinburgh Free Fringe (“the Fringe of the Fringe”, as Iley puts it) this summer. Their aim is to “turn the O’Reilly, which is usually a very cold theatrical space, into a comedy club for a week.” The show is providing the sketch acts with an opportunity for press releases and audience reactions before they go to the Free Fringe. The Free Fringe is “really avant-garde”, with pub venues, and an ideal place for new sketch shows to test their comedy, with a view to developing more student comedy within Oxford and beyond, and valuing these independent groups’ work.

This is the Revue’s challenge – it’s “more achievable with the O’Reilly than the Playhouse; making it an evening where people sit at tables, where we serve drinks.”

Something is on the rise in student comedy – “from our perspective it definitely is”. The Oxford Revue is facilitating and nurturing comedy around the university as well as maintaining a sense of difference.

Iley says it’s “not an uncontroversial stance that the Revue takes” – this stance being that comedy needs to constantly grow and groups must feed into each other rather than being separate and competitive. “People think there’s a strange monopoly on comedy”, says Fox. The Revue’s project hopes to change this kind of thinking.

Their “deepest darkest secret” is that the material written for this show was written during a Revue getaway – they “felt privileged to be able to be in an environment where [they] could focus solely on the creative aspects of the Revue.” This is their first getaway and the Keble show will be the fruits of this week-long creative labour. Alex Fox adds “some would say we went stir-crazy and started to hate each other.” Hopefully this enmity will translate into dynamism on stage.

The Revue also promise “top-notch booze” at the Desperate Liaisons show next week. It starts at 9pm, you can have drinks with friends and “even if you’re in the middle of finals it’s not a hugely emotional weight, it’s a light-hearted show.” Fox assures me that “you can heckle as much as you like”. The table set-up at the O’Reilly opens the way for much more interactive comedy – Iley tells me they’re “trying to make the O’Reilly cosy.”

I ask them if they fit into specific stereotyped roles built up throughout the year. I am told Watkeys-Dowie generally plays the “hairy” roles, Honey plays the “surreal and terrifying” roles, but generally they are quite versatile.

The O’Reilly comedy club ‘Desperate Liaisons’ show not only promises to be hilarious, but also is the start of something new for Oxford student comedy – a collaborative effort to put original comedy shows on a new pedestal, in the university and in Edinburgh.

An infinite number of monkeys given an infinite number of typewriters would eventually be able to replicate the complete works of Shakespeare. If, however, you gave three dyspraxic gibbons fifteen minutes alone with a sheet of sugar paper and a leaky biro, they would probably produce something similar to my output in my life drawing class at the Jam Factory Arts Centre.

The visual arts are not a strong point of mine; I have been cursed from birth with eight stumpy chipolatas for fingers and only nominally prehensile thumbs. This deficiency has left me able to do little more than ineffectually lunge at the page with the precision of a toddler and the self-control of Lenny during the climactic scene in ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Nonetheless, my friend agreed to take me along to her life drawing session to see if an hour and a half crudely sketching a naked pensioner could turn me into Da Vinci. That I was not entirely in my comfort zone became obvious early on. Imagine a stereotypical French artist in his smoky garret, floppy smock spattered with oil paints and legs akimbo as he daubs a portrait of his reclining mistress in a state of dishabille. He pauses in his work, lifts up his thumb and squints momentarily. The reclining mistress of course understands that he is merely gauging the scale of the piece, and continues to recline with aplomb.  She does not, as I did, interpret the artist’s extended digit as a friendly thumbs up, and respond with two thumbs and a cheery grin of her own.

As I realised the man opposite me was not welcoming me to the group, but merely concentrating on his own charcoal sketch, I quietly lowered my thumbs and took up my pencil. Easels were available, and I had taken one, not because it would make any difference to my artwork, but because I wanted to fit in. If there had been someone there dispensing complimentary berets, laudanum and severed ears to complete the troubled artist look, I would have been first in line.

“Every man is a builder of a Temple called his body.” At least, he is according to Henry David Thoreau. To be fair to my model, for a man of advanced years, he had looked after himself well, and his body was remarkably slim and wrinkle-free. The freakishly smooth contours of his body poured from my pencil, as he posed for us with studied neutrality. He conducted himself with remarkable gravity for a man utterly devoid of underwear.

My work did improve throughout the class, as our model moved from a series of warm-up positions to three longer poses. First he straddled a chair like an extra from ‘One Foot in the Grave’ who had wandered into a Cabaret audition; secondly, he stood with one leg propped on the seat, gazing into the middle distance with the gravitas accorded only to Roman Emperors and the publicly nude; and for a finale, he curled in a foetal position on the floor, as smooth, orange and shiny as a baked bean.

The resultant drawings will not be displayed in public any time soon, for fear they might upset small children, art critics and other people of a temperamental disposition. Nonetheless, that notoriously lazy bastard Michelangelo took four years to paint the Sistine Chapel, whereas I produced three sketches in just over an hour, at least one of which is vaguely identifiable as being a picture of a human man. For me, that is achievement enough.

(EDIT: The embed code seems to be skipping tracks. Click here for full playlist)

It is well-known that we have a taste for the peculiar. Children clamour over the Guinness Book of World Records; the queues outside Ripley’s Believe It Or Not snake down Piccadilly Circus and our Facebook newsfeeds teem with YouTube videos of the bizarre. Still, we tell ourselves that this is a tame enjoyment of the strange, not the cruel sniggering at, for example, a carnival freak show. And yet television programmes which centre on fat people seem to be the twenty-first century incarnation of such freak shows, appealing to our lustful schadenfreude and exploiting physical form in the name of entertainment.

Fat Families, Secret Eaters, Obese: A Year to Save My Life: a plethora of programmes to remind armchair athletes that a penchant for Doritos is a mere peccadillo compared to the grotesque habits of these others, who unwittingly eat themselves into oblivion. Overweight people in these programmes are consistently portrayed as lazy, stupid and gluttonous, and the vilification that ensues is permitted under the guise of health awareness. The assumption that being heavy correlates with being unhealthy goes unquestioned. Private medical consultations are nationally broadcast with the weak justification that this infantilisation is benevolent in aim.

Some programmes emphasise the importance of nutrition, but patronising reminders that celery sticks are healthier than crisps do little to educate about dietetics, or look into why people have chosen to ignore these well-known guidelines. If any psychological issues are raised, they are dismissed with a cursory reference to ‘comfort eating’.  Struggles to adhere to prescribed diets are treated with condescension, or perhaps a voyeuristic trip to the home of someone entirely incapacitated by their weight. The curtain is lifted on the seriously dysfunctional and then dropped again swiftly. It’s enough to know that they’re out there.

Another remedial option is exercise, a commendable pursuit to ameliorate physical and mental wellbeing. Unsurprisingly, however, producers know that 40 minutes of steady jogging round the park would make tedious television. A competitive element is introduced: let’s have the fatties put through their fatty paces and whichever of their fatty faces hasn’t shifted the pounds will be sent home. I watched a series of The Biggest Loser USA. Its Willy-Wonka-meets-PE-teacher approach of discarding the failing contestants until the laurel wreath can be presented to the champion is pretty addictive. At moments the programme is moving, but the humiliation endemic in it is distasteful and nasty. Watching adults crumple into self-abasement at public weigh-ins is uncomfortable viewing. We should flinch, wince and cringe, but not at the contestants.

Yet, perhaps the most insidious example of this genre is the programme which professes to seek balance: Supersize versus Superskinny. For the uninitiated, an obese person and a severely underweight one are invited to swap eating habits to encourage food-related anxieties to surface. The producers supplement this ‘journey’ by following a group of recovering anorexia patients as they attempt everyday challenges like supermarket shopping and choosing food at a buffet. While engagement with these issues is important, the way that progress is expected from the patients each week fails to appreciate the non-linear nature of eating disorder recovery, which can be affected by internal factors and other circumstances. Relapses form a part of this ebb-and-flow recovery process, and the pressure to appear to be snacking for victory in the weekly segment must be agonising.

NHS research in 2007 suggested that 6.4% of the UK adult population display signs of eating disorders. The media focus on size must be considered, and Supersize versus Superskinny has been accused of broadcasting ‘thinspirational’ content.  The repeated images of underweight people, with reference to precise measurements, have made it onto many ‘pro-ana’ websites, offering unhealthy paradigms for weight-loss. Although the programme stresses the dangers of extreme eating habits, Channel 4 declares its target audience age to be 16-34, which includes the age bracket most vulnerable to eating disorders: 16-19.

Nevertheless, Supersize versus Superskinny remains a symptom of a wider problem. The elusive, perfect, ‘real woman’ shape means that women are constantly assessing themselves to ensure they have lost weight in ‘the right places’. The dream of being ‘real’ is an ideal that seems kinder than that of the hollow-cheeked catwalk model. But it’s still not enough. When the capricious eye of the media decides that a celebrity is ‘embracing her curves’ as opposed to ‘piling on the pounds’, the assumption that her womanhood is in her dress size is insulting. Fat is a feminist issue, yes, but imagine if it weren’t. We will only have truly abandoned the freak show mentality when we consider all body shapes valid and cease to engage with the ‘fat, thin and normal’ cataloguing we see all around us.

Jamie Cullum returns this week with his sixth offering, Momentum, which he proclaimed in an interview with Cherwell, is a “songwriter’s album”. Since 2010’s The Pursuit, Cullum has married ex-model and novelist Sophie Dahl, been involved in Sky One’s Must Be The Music as a judge and continued his role as a host of his Radio 2 late night jazz show. A busy man, he himself admits that a “biographical element” may have “creeped into Momentum” due to his altered perspective on things in the last four years.

With only two covers on his new album, including an adaption of Cole Porter’s ‘Love for Sale’ complete with Roots Manuva and the iconic 90s bassline, this marks a significant departure, especially from his 2003 breakthrough Twentysomething which had nine out of fourteen of its tracks as cover versions. For Cullum, this “doesn’t mark a conscious move away” from his earlier work, but more a “focus on songwriting”. 2003 was “still a world of CDs” and now that the internet has taken over, “everything in some way, is a sort of niche”. The ability to record and distribute your own music, practically from your bedroom, seems to have had a profound effect on Cullum, who is now more involved in his own creative pro- cess than ever before.

With his own self-named ‘Terrified Studios’ at home, Cullum can practically wander out of his own bedroom and record a take, something he actually did on new track ‘Sad, Sad World’ to get “that husky tone”. This sense of spontaneity is reflected in his live performances, known for their improvisational nature and although Cullum’s “a bit more tired” now, he still has “that surge of adrenaline” he can’t quite describe. The constant presence of his own home studio which he admits “sounds a lot grander than it is”, has “really allowed [Cullum] to diversify” with a much more personal offering.

Cullum has always been known for his expansive musical knowledge, showcased on his BBC Radio 2 show. According to many sources, he turned down a place for History at Oxford. However, Cullum admits this has been vastly exaggerated over the years and that he was merely “on that path, but felt like it was some- one else’s” deciding to “do something a bit different” by going to study down the road at Reading.

Nevertheless, Cullum’s experiences at university made him the musician he is today: he was part of a £1m bidding war between major record labels even before he’d left Reading. He “played a lot of gigs for most of [his] finals” which apparently “did something to [his] brain” that apparently helped but which he “definitely wouldn’t recommend”.

On the question of collaboration, he answers “definitely Beyonce!”. In general though, he’s just “gonna trust [his] guts”. 

Romeo and Juliet, Australia, Moulin Rouge: Baz Luhrmann loves a challenge. But has he bitten off more than he can chew with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby?

It was always going to be a tall order, and arguably a task that should never have been undertaken. The story begins with Nick Carraway, who finds himself in Perkins Sanitorium reliving his first encounter with Gatsby. A few minutes of archive footage and rather a lot of voiceover later, it’s all champagne and hip-hop music as we’re swept amongst the masses in Gatsby’s back garden (well, back field, complete with fountains and swimming pools, obviously). These opening scenes are just a bit too hectic, almost as though production had about ten packets of Haribo too many and chucked in fireworks and dancing and every extra they had – to the point where it’s difficult to know where to look first.

Sometimes it’s best to keep things simple, and the beginning of this movie is a prime example of this. To add to this we have Tobey Maguire providing a voiceover which, if you’ve already read the book, is more than a bit annoying. If we wanted an audio book, we’d go out and buy one. The first part of the movie plays like a sugar-infused sparkle-fest, moves very fast and feels more like theatre than screen. Do not, however, be perturbed.

Based on the start, this film could have reduced a highly regarded piece of literature down to a riotous party, and an animated reconstruction of twenties New York. Mercilessly it doesn’t. By the time we meet Gatsby, everything takes a slightly calmer turn. DiCaprio proves himself a natural choice to play Jay Gatsby, the mysterious and filthy rich neighbour to Nick Carraway, and owner of what can best be described as Disneyland for alcoholics and flapper girls. As we begin familiarising ourselves with the walking complexity that is Gatsby, Carey Mulligan steps up to add yet more confusion to the mix. The problem is that Daisy Buchanan is Gatsby’s one and only. They met when he was a soldier and, despite falling head over heels, circumstances pulled them apart. Daisy married Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), her rude and arrogant husband also known as ‘the polo player’. Tom counts being unfaithful to Daisy as one of his hobbies, and this is the injustice at the heart of Fitzgerald’s story: here are two people who should be together, but they just can’t seem to get it right. It’s through their portrayal of this struggle that Mulligan and DiCaprio really prove their acting credentials, and Gatsby earns its place opening the Cannes Film Festival this month.

After a rocky start, this movie settles into a well-crafted, modern version of F Scott. Fitzgerald’s original story. There are a few gripes, such as the return of the voiceover and the dodgy use of floating text which makes it look slightly like a Waterstones’s advert, but there was a definite effort to stay true to the story and portray the dilemmas of the characters in a real and relatable way.
In preparation for his first meeting with Daisy after many years, Gatsby fills Nick’s living room with flowers and then asks ‘Do you think it’s too much?’ This really is representative of the whole movie. It’s bright, shiny, chaotic and overflowing with madness of the highest order. It’s not too much, old sport: yet again, Luhrmann’s got it just right.