Nixon returns to the Oxford Union for the third time with Peter Morgan’s
Frost/Nixon, staged in 4th week in the debate chamber – the venue that hosted the former President’s two visits to the place in 1958 and 1978. You would be forgiven for thinking the two previous visits were made by different men. In 1958, Nixon was Vice-President in an administration that oversaw the birth of NASA and a mutual agreement between Russia, the UK and the USA to stop developing armaments for three years.

Come 1978, it was an entirely different story. Nixon had resigned over the Watergate scandal, in which it had emerged that his cronies wiretapped his opponents to gain an electoral advantage. More than that – Nixon himself had been involved in covering up the crime. His resignation had simply been a way of avoiding shameful impeachment. That year, the whole debacle had just reached catharsis. It had also been a year since an infamous set of interviews conducted by David Frost. The sensational no-holds-barred conversations pulled in audiences of over 45 million viewers in America alone. It remains the largest ever television audience for a political interview. Nixon admitted that he had disgraced the presidential office. But he also dropped the bombshell: “I believe it’s not illegal if the president does it”.

As a result the televised interviews – conceived as an attempt to raise his profile – tanked, while the interviews sent Frost’s career into the stratosphere. A poll showed 75% of viewers thought Nixon had no more role to play in public life.

The play is infused with a real sense of competitiveness between the two sides; the Frost and Nixon camps rehearsing separately. The directors see the chamber as a boxing ring, and projections of people filming the show live will give the audience the sense of a TV show. Nixon was not a man who gave up easily. His 1978 trip to Europe was a bid to re-establish himself as a speaker with an agenda to make a difference in the world, and to promote his recently published memoirs. Among his stops were the Sorbonne, Berlin and Oxford. The Union, then a conservative-leaning organization, had invited him to speak in great secret. For security reasons, he was not even on the termcard for the Michaelmas when he visited. Even while the event was going on, the level of security was very high: Nixon’s men from the Security Service scoured the building for potential threats, and a whole wing of the Radcliffe Infirmary was reserved in case anything happened. There was so much public interest that the event was restricted to life members. Needless to say, the number of life memberships rapidly jumped following the disclosure of the visit.

Much like the visit of Julian Assange earlier this year, Nixon’s appearance attracted a great deal of controversy. Although Union memberships were snapped up on news of the visit, not everyone wanted to hear what Nixon had to say. A protest was organized by American graduate student Andy Paalborg, who studied at Pembroke at the time. Paalborg was intent on stopping Nixon benefitting from the prestige of Oxford and on hampering Nixon’s plans of only speaking at conservative societies to ensure a good reception. He managed to attract the attention of the international media to his protest by publicising that a large protest was planned – and the news reached papers all over the world. When Nixon arrived on the night in a black limousine, he was pelted with eggs. Paalborg told Cherwell, “There were 12 arrests that day. The protesters surged toward his car and rocked it back and forth.” The protesters allegedly numbered in the hundreds and carried anti-Nixon banners. They crowded around the Union as Nixon delivered his speech, tuning into the BBC to listen in to the address and shouting “Bullshit!” among other cries of disagreement during the Question Time-style session.

Although those who attended the event testify that the protests were not too disruptive, the demonstration was covered across the Atlantic. Paalborg and his protest was splashed across the British and American news channels whilst Time magazine published photos of the protesters. Some opine that the protests were the result of Oxford’s left at the time revolting against conservatism: Anti-Nixon sentiment merely provided a convenient excuse for action. The Union then was less open to all ends of the political spectrum as it is today. The term card cnsisted mostly, if not to say exclusively, of rightwing speakers.

There was at the same time a strong communist, even neo-Trotskyite, anti-American contingent that was trying to raise the profile of OUSU which was then a newly-born and penniless association. But what did Nixon actually speak about? Not that much to do with the burning topic of Watergate, apparently, although of course it was the thing that everyone wanted to hear about following the Frost interviews. Instead, he focused on looking forward: he spoke about the threat posed to the world by the Soviet Union, and how the West (which he defined as Japan, the US, the UK, Canada and Europe) can compete with the Communist states.

His only comments about the big scandal that brought him down were reluctantly made during question time, when he admitted “I screwed it up” and “I made a mistake”.

The Ice Cream Girls is ITV’s latest thriller, based on the novel of the same name by Dorothy Koomson. I happen to have read (and rather enjoyed) the book, so was looking forward to the adaptation. The plot follows two women, Poppy and Serena, who were both involved with the same creepy older man seventeen years ago. As the story flits between their teenage and grown-up selves, we learn that Serena is now happily married with a family, whereas Poppy has just been released from prison. Cue dramatic reveals all over the place. 

Firstly, let me start by saying that I really wanted to shoot the screenwriter (Kate Brook). The book was actually quite well written, so oh-my-lord why didn’t she just lift the dialogue? Instead we get some of the most awful, clunky rubbish I’ve ever had the misfortune of sitting through, including gems like “We’re a family. We stick together” and “Just think about Mum. She needs us. You can do it.” I wish I was making this up, but I’m not. What’s more, she did that terrible thing of adding an obligatory character with cancer to create more emotion. Seriously, this has to be one of my least favourite tropes ever (note: using the same techniques as Nicholas Sparks is never a good idea). It’s like people who win an argument by referencing Nazis (the technical term is ‘to Godwin’. Yes I did just look that up. Moving on.) My other problem is that I know that there’s plenty of genuine drama to be had in The Ice Cream Girls, and yet the first eight minutes were so completely bland that I mistook the opening for a car commercial. Not a good sign. 

I wasn’t really convinced by Lorraine Burrows’s Serena, who just seemed awkward the whole time, however Johdi May was excellent as Poppy. Her introduction was probably my favourite shot of the entire forty five minutes; involving a bridge, lots of cars and some angsty screaming. Good cinematography there. Their teenage equivalents, played by Georgina Campbell and Holli Dempsey, both nailed it: giving impressively nuanced performances in fairly limited screen time. Martin Compston was also excellent as their sort-of-boyfriend, who arguably has the hardest job of the lot since he had to make both us and the girls love and hate him simultaneously. He was restrained and not quite disturbing enough for my money, but was definitely getting there towards the end.

Overall, this first episode was a slow-burner, lacking the tension that I felt the story deserved. It was essentially just a lot of scene-setting for the impending drama which was ominously hinted at throughout. However, a host of strong performances bodes well for future episodes and I just might tune in again next week to see how they do. 

Three stars

ITV’s crime-fighting double act is back for a third series with a fresh set of murders and plenty of surprises along the way. The crime drama follows the lives of D.C. Rachel Bailey and D.C. Jill Scott at work in the Manchester Metropolitan Police Major Incident Team, as well as at home, where things are far from simple. Unlike most detective series, the writers of Scott and Bailey focus on the characters and developing their stories, avoiding the predictableness of a ‘whodunnit?’ in favour of convincing real life drama with clout. 

In series one we witnessed the ups and downs of Bailey’s relationship with nasty Nick Savage, played by Rupert Graves (V for Vendetta, Garrow’s Law). By series three, with the barrister out of the picture, Rachel appears to be struggling to adapt to her new life with Sean: a happy-go-lucky traffic cop who might just be the man to curb her self-destructive tendencies. That’s not Bailey’s only problem – when she’s not questioning her marriage, she’s trying to keep her mother under control. Series three promises a further peek into her back story, with the arrival of Sharon Bailey played by Tracie Bennett. Whilst this pub-crawling embarrassment of a mother adds humour to proceedings, her presence also allows us to see a new side to Rachel, who thus far seems to have adopted DC Scott as a mother figure and forgotten all trace of her younger self. 

Meanwhile, Janet Scott is still dealing with the fallout after her divorce from teacher Ade whilst taking care of her daughters and pursuing her work in the police. However, she’s far from perfect. As her series two affair with fellow MIT member Andy suggests, there’s more to her than meets the eye. Amongst all this murder and life drama, there’s comic relief from Amelia Bullmore, who co-wrote with Sally Wainwright two of this series’s eight episodes. The straight-talking detective chief inspector played by Bullmore completes the trio of women who bring a fresh, modern angle to the programme as working women trying to juggle various aspects of their lives. The feisty Mancunians’ hold on the major incident team is due to be loosened, however, with the arrival of ex-Emmerdale star Danny Miller as DS Rob Waddington. An exciting addition following his turn in ITV drama Lightfields, Miller is sure to stir things up. 

There is always a concern with a third series that the drama will have run its course or that it will fail to meet expectations. For Scott and Bailey the writers needn’t worry. With a good mix of humour and drama as well as complex characters like these, the work of MIT’s finest has only just begun. 

Four stars

Scott and Bailey is on Wednesdays ITV 1 at 9pm

Sitting on the edge of our Freshers’ Fair desk, tired and fairly sleep-deprived after three days and over a thousand confused first years, I think we had all acutely realized that immersive cinema was a pretty alien art form to most. We used to dream of people who had heard of Secret Cinema. It’s amazing then that six months and three immersive events later – the third of which, Black Swan, opens on April 25^th – we still haven’t really come up with a succinct explanation of immersive cinema to copy and paste into situations like this. But here goes another attempt.

Immersive cinema is the collaboration of a number of different art forms into a single night of unique, unexpected fun. It aims to recreate the world of a particular film before, during and after the audience have taken their seats. The means of doing this is different from project to project: the unpredictability is part of the experience. However, usually this involves the recreation of set pieces from the film in which the audience can play an active or passive role. For example, our last immersive project, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, saw confetti cannons and balloons being released from the balcony during the famous ‘Twist and Shout’ carnival scene, among other surprises.

Black Swan, in association with Keble Arts Festival, seeks to capitalise on surprise even further. Dark and moody, the film is an marked change from many of those we’ve adapted before. But this has been a challenge we have really relished. Audience members can expect to be charmed, confused and hopefully even scared by an evening of immersive psycho-sexual horror.