Wednesday 17th June 2026
Blog Page 1830

Review: Curse of the Oxford Revue

Joshua Phillips
-
0
Review: Curse of the Oxford Revue

A quick note before we start: this curse has nothing to do with either myself or the many others who populate this most illustrious section of your favourite free student newspaper. Very few of us dabble in the occult, to the best of my knowledge. Rather, this curse is rather different. Review is spelt differently. This is the Curse of the Oxford Revue.

Specifically, this curse is placed on a small village called Blight-upon-Cripple, a place that is as strange as it is charmingly-named, and it is to this town that intrepid reporter Kirsty Kirstyson is sent, chasing a story about a vole that bears a striking resemblance to Geri Halliwell. Instead, she stumbles across a town that has been living under the shadow of a terrifying curse for the past three decades. Being the intrepid reporter that she is, she decides to investigate. But none of that matters, to be quite frank. This is a sketch show, in the manner of so many flying circuses and pairs of Ronnies. Plot barely figures. Neither does character. The small troupe display a remarkable range, fleshing out a variety of characters, some one-offs and others recurring figures. An early sketch, and a particularly brilliant one at that has the Brazilian president and his advisor celebrating the rebound of their country’s economy based upon the revival of their most vital export, the Brazilian Darkness chocolate. Another is a song on the subject of the Viking funeral, a truly spectacular piece of verbal acrobatics. You get the idea.

Whilst some sketches are nothing short of genius, however, some fall flat. This is hardly the fault of the cast, who remain polished and professional throughout. One can hardly criticise their sense of timing, or their self-confidence: the troupe act with bombast and poise regardless of the quality of their material. You’ll notice that I refer to the actors here in the plural: it is very hard to pick a stand-out performer, or one who is significantly less talented than the others. Rather, it is the writing that tends to fall flat. The sketches take a Python-esque aspect, hinging around the sheer mass of non-sequitur and sheer inanity that characterises, say, And Now for Something Completely Different. Sometimes, this works spectacularly. Take, for example, the song about Viking funerals that I mentioned earlier: wonderfully, gleefully silly. A sketch depicting two couples playing a game of something called Beaver-ball that involved verbal abuse and interpretive dance had the audience, myself included, in paroxysms of laughter and sheer bafflement, and was arguably the high point of the proceedings. Others, though, less good. Talking about these is slightly harder: they’re just not memorable. It’s not that they were dreadful. The comedy wasn’t dissimilar, the acting was still excellent. They just weren’t as funny.

And this is what makes summing up this review very difficult. Whilst the Curse of the Oxford Revue did contain sketches of sheer, comic genius, acted out by some undoubtedly fine comedians, it also contained moments which just fell flat. In a traditional play, this kind of inconsistency would prove fatal, but the Curse of the Oxford Revue is not such a play; rather, it is a sketch show. Should it be judged by the same standards as a play, as the same sort of unified whole? More crucially, however, should a sketch show be so uneven as to inspire my pedantic musing in search of some form of critical justification one way or the other? Probably not.

3 stars

Interview: Messiah Man

Ruby Riley And Matthew Isard
-
0
Interview: Messiah Man

Messiah Man opens at the Burton Taylor Studio on Tuesday 7th of February at 21:30 and runs until Saturday 11th. Tickets are £5 for students and can be bought online at www.oxfordplayhouse.com/bt

Harry Potter sorting ceremony to take place in Oxford

Anthony Collins
-
0
Harry Potter sorting ceremony to take place in Oxford
Oxford’s own start-of-year Sorting Ceremony will take place this week, a term later than expected.
 
The event, organised by the newly formed Harry Potter Society, will see the Sorting Hat delve deep
into students’ minds and place them in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin.
 
A formal invitation, sent to all society members, urged them to “take the Hogwarts Express to Harris
Manchester College” and “get to know some fellow Harry Potter fans over a butterbeer”.
 
It also specified a number of questions which students must answer in advance, and which form the
basis of the hat’s decision. These include scenarios like “A Muggle confronts you and says that they
are sure you are a witch or wizard”  and “A very strong man approaches you while you’re eating
lunch and demands that you give him some food. He doesn’t appear to be starving or poor. There is
nobody there to stop him from taking it.” In each case students must choose from a selection of four
responses.
 
Stevie Finegan, one of the society’s “Mugwumps” (Vice-Presidents) explained the need for such a
system, revealing that the Hat has lost many of its magical powers since it sorted Harry and friends.
She said, “Unfortunately its magical element is proving far less cooperative than we would have
hoped. As such we are having to prod it along and help it with song writing.”
 
Finegan promised that the house system will feature in future society meetings, telling Cherwell, “We
do have some events coming up in the future where houses will compete against one another,
including everyone’s favourite, some inter-house Quidditch – so once you’re sorted into your house,
I’d try and suss out who among your number is good with a broom!”
 
She also stressed the importance of school unity, saying, “Once everyone is sorted on Thursday they
will instantly find themselves having to partner up with a student from each of the other houses, in
order to compete in our Three Broomsticks Quiz and win some fantastic prizes.”
 
One student suggested a possible reason for the Sorting Hat’s deterioration in magical ability,
pointing out that “the hat was blown up in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when
Voldemort sacked Hogwarts.”
 
Meanwhile Imogen Jones, a third-year Classicist at Corpus Christi College, feared that the hat might
entrench élitism at Oxford, claiming, “I’ve heard state school students are twice as likely to be
sorted into Hufflepuff as their privately educated counterparts.”
 
The event will take place at Harris Manchester College at 7.30pm on Thursday 2nd February.

Oxford’s own start of year Sorting Ceremony will take place this week – a term later than expected. 

The event, organised by the newly formed Harry Potter Society, will see the Sorting Hat delve deep into students’ minds and place them in Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin. 

A formal invitation, sent to all society members, urged them to “take the Hogwarts Express to Harris Manchester College” and “get to know some fellow Harry Potter fans over a butterbeer”. 

It also specified a number of questions which students must answer in advance, and which form the basis of the hat’s decision. These include scenarios like “A Muggle confronts you and says that they are sure you are a witch or wizard”  and “A very strong man approaches you while you’re eating lunch and demands that you give him some food. He doesn’t appear to be starving or poor. There is nobody there to stop him from taking it.” In each case students must choose from a selection of four responses. 

Stevie Finegan, one of the society’s “Mugwumps” (Vice-Presidents) explained the need for such a system, revealing that the hat has lost many of its magical powers since it sorted Harry and friends. She said, “Unfortunately its magical element is proving far less cooperative than we would have hoped. As such we are having to prod it along and help it with song writing.” 

Finegan promised that the house system will feature in future society meetings, telling Cherwell, “We do have some events coming up in the future where houses will compete against one another,including everyone’s favourite, some inter-house Quidditch – so once you’re sorted into your house, I’d try and suss out who among your number is good with a broom!” 

She also stressed the importance of school unity, saying, “Once everyone is sorted on Thursday they will instantly find themselves having to partner up with a student from each of the other houses, in order to compete in our Three Broomsticks Quiz and win some fantastic prizes.” 

One student suggested a possible reason for the Sorting Hat’s deterioration in magical ability, pointing out that “the hat was blown up in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, when Voldemort sacked Hogwarts.” 

Meanwhile Imogen Jones, a third-year classicist at Corpus Christi College, feared that the hat might entrench élitism at Oxford, claiming, “I’ve heard state school students are twice as likely to be sorted into Hufflepuff as their privately educated counterparts.” 

Clare Franklin, a second year mathematician and long-standing Potter aficionado, commented, ‘The sorting ceremony is a rite of passage, and will no doubt be the most important trial any of us face this term. As you would no doubt guess, I would rather suffer through one of Umbridge’s detentions than be in Hufflepuff, and being a Muggleborn, I’d be scared for my safety in Slytherin. But I could be quite at home in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.’

The event will take place at Harris Manchester College at 7.30pm on Thursday 2nd February.

What a Wit

Ruby Riley
-
0
What a Wit

Wit is being performed at the Burton Taylor Studio in 4th week from Tuesday 7th February to Saturday 11th February. Tickets are available online at http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/btsstudent/

Mario Balotelli spotted queueing up for hall

Ollie Waring
-
0
Mario Balotelli spotted queueing up for hall

With the end of the January transfer window looming ahead, it has been announced that many Oxford collegiate sportsmen are expected to sign for ‘endless hours of hard work, solitude and despondency’ in a spate of last minute deals.

Oil rich Qatari side ‘Al-dissertation’ are predicted to lead the chase, targeting ‘tired and jaded yet experienced’ finalists in a flurry of big money transfers. Conservative Russian club ‘Last-minute-revision-plansky Moscow’ are prepared to hold back the cheque book until the 5th week of Trinity, in the hope of signing ‘marooned and helpless freshers’ on the cheap. News has also come in that for the umpteenth year running JCR football 3rd division basement club Univ are still in search of anyone with anything that could be interpreted as talent, allegedly targeting ‘all living organisms with at least one leg and a pulse’.

The sudden flurry of transfer rumours are thought to be the knock-on effect of a Michaelmas term jam-packed with fixtures and crew dates for many students. As one second year put quite bluntly, ‘Many of us have suddenly realised that we should probably spend some time doing our degree.’

Lots of people from around the University have kindly tweeted and texted in with information on the whereabouts of potential transfer targets. Jenny from room 201 said that she saw a Lincoln first team player ‘sneaking back from Teddy Hall at 4am’, yet it is unlikely that this has anything to do with football as the player is clearly cup-tied. Another announced, ‘£2million transfer of medic Saras Mane ironically cancelled due to failed medical. Lol!’

Claims have indeed been as farfetched as one student’s text: ‘Just seen someone dressed in full rugby stash making revision notes in the Bodleian library xoxo’. MarkHannay’s tweeted: ‘OMG just seen Mario Balotelli queuing up for hall at Exeter College!!!’, although he did later admit that his statement was about as farcical as one of Steve Kean’s post-match interviews, and he merely wanted to get his name into the paper. Cherwell cannot confirm or deny the validity of either of these assertions.

Several coaches have also expressed their concern that many of their star players with contracts expiring in the summer were expected to be swept away by big money contracts in the financial sector, admitting that, ‘If they only stayed on for DPhils our MCR team might stand a chance of actually fielding eleven players for a match.’

One such sell-out retorted, ‘I’ve joined this club because I really want to make a difference to my field and feel that the club matches my ambition. It’s got absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I’ll own my house before you’ve even paid off your student loan, and will most probably retire to a dream life of fast cars, glamour models and luxurious cruises by the time I’m 40.’

Our transfer dealings conclude with the story that one player, whilst on trial at high-flying Worcester, allegedly rejected their offer of a three year contract, professing that the 1st team ‘didn’t have enough Blues players and simply wasn’t good enough’. However it has since been revealed that he’d completely ballsed up the trialling process and was in fact about as good as football as Andy Carroll’s grandmother.

Review: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour – Out of Frequency

Marc Pacitti
-
0
Review: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour – Out of Frequency

Were it not for the weekly reminders in the NME, I might have thought that everywhere east of Glasgow was capable only of either trotting out Scandidisco remixes of our wonderful Anglo-Saxon music, or donning cardigans and burbling their own winsome, yet unmarketable, folk songs. Denmark’s The Asteroids Galaxy Tour are every bit the aesthetic fulfillment of such a preconception. The tone of surprise and expectation of intrinsic national “quirkiness” that colours every piece of writing about a genuinely good album produced by a band that happens to hail from Denmark, Sweden or Norway is nothing more or less than a prejudice, a kind of unconscious cultural condescension. Funnily enough, like most other peoples of the globe, Scandinavians are actually capable of making some really great music – and the Asteroids Galaxy Tour are no exception.

The album really isn’t bad at all. The retro-revival brass section trend (that Mark Ronson has been forced to shoulder the responsibility for) is certainly present, and used correctly for once. This is no Lily Allen parody of a sound that deserves to be taken seriously, but a genuine and enthusiastic stylistic choice. Regrettably, that choice is occasionally ignored in favour of a diluted semi-synthpop (as heard on ‘Heart Attack’ and the title track), that never quite tears itself away from the ‘nu-soul’ rhythms to which the brass section was so ideally suited.

It is music that you will have heard before. Almost every song on Out of Frequency sounds like a cousin of ‘The Golden Age’, the breakout single that made the band’s name and soundtracked that Heineken advert. Some would use this apparent lack of imagination as a stick with which to beat the album. However, I feel that the Asteroids Galaxy Tour are best when they stick to their guns. This is not ‘ideas’ music; it’s a bit of fun. It’s something to put on when you need cheering up, or a little mindless bounce in your step. Sure, the lyrics are meaningless; every song feels the same; Lindberg’s voice can get a big grating – but this music makes me want to dance. They’ve found a formula that works – a danceable beat, a hint of the futuristic, horns and trumpets, a yelp or two from frontwoman Mette Lindberg, and it’s good as gold.

3.5/5 (or four at a push)

For love of the Lords

Rachel Savage
-
0
For love of the Lords

The Lords are undemocratic, unaccountable and, thankfully, useless; an anachronistic relic that should be relegated to history. Or so the well-worn argument runs. Yet the Lords have been proving every naysayer wrong over the last couple of weeks in doing exactly what any self-respecting parliament should do – holding the government to account.

Now I would like to see a democratic Lords as much as anyone, but I have, to my surprise, found myself momentarily thanking the gods of democracy for passing Britain by, and giving us the current crop of peers who are pointing out the obvious pitfalls in the government’s ham-handed attempt at welfare reform.

The Lords have enacted six defeats to the government’s flagship welfare bill, including rejecting the proposal that single parents should be charged to use the Child Support Agency – charged for help to get money from the other parent that their child is entitled to. They also supported an amendment that would exempt child benefit from the £26,000 benefit cap. While £26,000 sounds like a substantial amount of money (and is for most – it is equal to a salary of £35,000 after tax) it could leave families surviving on just £100 a week after housing benefit pays the rent on a flat or house in the South East.

Now I am not against welfare reform in principle – the system costs over £200 billion a year, and has indeed meant that some people can afford to stay permanently out of work. The proposed benefit cap is also wildly popular, with even 69% of Labour supporters in favour of it. However, most people on benefits are not the “scroungers” the Daily Mail loves to harangue – the rising number of people claiming benefits are mostly the swelling ranks of the unemployed. And even columnists on the Daily Mail could not bring themselves to support slashing 20% off the budget for disabled benefits. Welfare reform was always going to be a messy business, but with unemployment a persistent problem as the economy still stutters, it needs handling with more care than ever.

And this is where the Lords have been proving their worth, by picking apart the welfare bill, and forcing the government to think twice about the true effects of what it is proposing. This is far more than MPs have been doing lately – in stumbling efforts to prove their economic mettle, Labour have been falling over themselves to support the coalitions’ cuts and the benefit cap (although shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Liam Byrne did write to Nick Clegg proposing regional variations in the cap).

Now, regardless on where you stand on the coalition’s policies, any good democracy should have a parliament that actually scrutinises legislation and government policy. This is something in which the UK has always been sorely lacking, in no small part due to the toothless status of the Lords. However, the actions of the Lords in the past couple of weeks has provided a taster of what actual scrutiny could really be like (and yes, I for one, am happy to put up with a bit of deadlock in return for some actual accountability).

Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan-Smith, has, unsurprisingly, insisted that the government will overturn all six defeats inflicted on the welfare bill by the Lords (though he has mooted that other concessions may be introduced before the vote in the Commons on Wednesday). This will comfort those who balk at the obvious democratic deficit in the upper chamber. The amendment to exclude child benefit from the cap, for example, was put forward by the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, with the strong support of all 26 spiritual peers. While the amendment itself was welcome, the intervention of bishops in a country where regular church attendance is less than 7% served to remind everyone of the blatantly unrepresentative make up of our second chamber.

This is why we need an elected Lords. Creating an elected second chamber that still retains the expertise and relative impartiality of the current House of Lords would be no easy task (though what qualifies Lord Alan Sugar to vote on heath reform is beyond me). If, however, we had a democratic upper chamber, governments could no longer afford to ignore parliament. Then, we might really have an accountable government on our hands.


Mayweather vs. Pacquiao: will it ever happen?

Monish Kulkarni
-
0
Mayweather vs. Pacquiao: will it ever happen?

I still remember it. The cold winter day that Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao and Floyd “Money” Mayweather expressed their intentions to fight. Of course, like any other fight fan, I couldn’t wait. The fight was set to be an absolute thriller; the most anticipated welterweight contest in boxing history since the days of Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns all the way back in 1981. Such a showdown would pit the two juggernauts of the modern boxing era against each other in a fascinating contest of styles: the ferocity and strength of Pacquiao against the dazzling hand-speed and boxing genius of Mayweather. It is no wonder, therefore, that this fight was valued at a staggering $100 million in PPV estimates, predicted to break all records in fight attendance and global interest. But tragically, the greatest contest in boxing is also killing boxing. Why? That cold, winter day was over two years ago… 

Mayweather-Pacquiao is an elusive prize for fight fans; like a juicy carrot left dangling before our eyes, only to be drawn away at the very last moment. For the last two years, the only ring the two prize-fighters have stepped into together has been a raucous media circus, with blows being traded only in the bland form of name-calling and cheap jibing. As I’m sure you’ve worked out, the fight, set initially for May 5th2010, was cancelled. Mayweather’s outrageous insistence that Pacquiao must undertake a series of random drug tests, independent of and including those set by the boxing commission, was enough to see the end of that. 

Over the last few years, through interviews, alleged phone calls and meetings that have dragged all the big power players in the business to the negotiating table, we are constantly informed that the fight is “just around the corner”, with contracts signed and the fissiparous issue of drug testing overcome, only for some shady figure associated with one side to release a statement inevitably saying negotiations have broken down. Fight fans don’t even get surprised anymore.  

But the current situation frankly, reads like a badly-scripted soap opera. Mayweather recently wrote on his twitter account “Manny Pacquiao I’m calling you out, let’s fight May 5th and give the world what they want to see…My jail sentence was pushed back because the date was locked in. Step up punk”. I don’t know what’s more ridiculous; the fact that the most vicious blow dealt out by Mayweather this year was calling Pacquiao a “punk”, or that he is facing imminent incarceration on June 1st for battery domestic violence and harassment. This means that May 5th 2012 is a potential date for the fight, but even this looks tenuous. Furthermore, money as ever is an issue. Mayweather is allegedly not willing to take a 50-50 split of the purse, despite an estimated $100 million in lucrative spoils to share.  Earlier this week, rather paradoxically, the head of the World Boxing Council (WBC) Jose Sulaiman reported that the fight will indeed go ahead, not in the UAE this November. We can forgive fans for thinking differently… 

It isn’t just that this fight isn’t being made that disappoints us. Yes, fans have waited a very long time for such a bombastic match-up of boxing titans. But what really rankles is that this fight is killing the sweet science, reflecting all that is chaotic, corrupt and incompetent within its framework. Intrinsic to the watching of any sport is the idea that you will see the best of the best face each other at some point and it is this maxim that legitimises everything from the FA Cup to the IPL. But in boxing, this is shamelessly flaunted. The lack of any all-encompassing organisational body like FIFA, NFL, the IRB or the ICC exacerbates the factionalism within the sport and allows fighters at the top level, as Mayweather and Pacquiao both undisputedly are, to throw their weight around and make unrealistic demands. In a perplexing sideshow, Pacquiao’s manager has suggested that his fighter’s next opponent may not be Mayweather after all, but Miguel Cotto: a man who was mauled by the Pacman in 2010. So why has a name like Cotto been thrown around? Because Bob Arum is Cotto’s manager too: a reflection on just how great the role of promoters and managers is in making fights happen, and conversely how little the influence of boxing commissions is in these contests. 

Much has been said of the sport’s unceremonious decline over the last twenty years since the heady days of Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard and Muhammad Ali, and there is some truth in this. But equally true is that just a small series of high-quality, exciting fights lift and elevate the sport back into the popular arena. Fights exactly like Mayweather-Pacquiao will not single-handedly “save” the sport from its position in the periphery, and I am under no illusions of this. But it will give boxing a much needed shot in the arm and re-generate interest in the sport. The current failure and inability to put match-ups like this into the ring sees boxing plunge further and further into obscurity. 

So will this fight take place? The boxing community will have to stay optimistic on that one. But more worryingly for observers is the inability of the powers that be to put a fight of this magnitude together; it reflects badly on boxing’s organisational structure and reeks of factionalism and the prominence that promoters like Arum play within the sport’s framework. Age is another consideration. Within a few years both fighters will be long past their prime in a sport that is truly unforgiving of father time’s effects: this, and the weight of the boxing world’s frustration and disappointment, must surely not be lost on them.  

DVD Review: The Burma Conspiracy

Nathan O'Neill
-
0
DVD Review: The Burma Conspiracy

The first Largo Winch film was lauded as being a breath of fresh air amongst the typical Hollywood, all-out action movies. In this respect then, The Burma Conspiracy was a disappointment. The film demonstrates more clichés than the family portrait of a particular Man City footballer. We have the solemnly sexy, suited antagonist (Sharon Stone), the eastern European billionaire (Dmitri Nazarov), and the bumbling sidekick providing the comic relief (Nicolas Vaude), though in this instance, he looks like he’d be better suited living in The Shire. The plot itself is also very worn: After announcing his intention to sell his business to fund a charity, Largo Winch (Tomer Sisley) is accused of crimes against humanity. It sounds like more sabotage, backstabbing, and conspiracy than Bond, Hunt, and Bourne, combined.

The most distracting aspect of this film was the multitude of languages that were used throughout. There were enough quick changes between English, French, and Burmese to make an award show host jealous. And the incessant use of subtitles provided a multi-sensory experience that I’d really rather avoid.

The movie itself is chronologically baffling, jumping from ‘three years earlier’ to ‘three years later’ with nothing more than a fleeting subtitle to explain. More popular titles have dealt with this issue in much better ways: J. Edgar uses different camera filters to indicate the date, and in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the presence of Gary Oldman’s glasses let us know what was going on. These useful tricks are apparently rather useful to stop the simple-minded (i.e. me) from getting confused.

On the plus side, the movie contains some refreshing direction from Jérôme Salle, and whilst the script may appear a little laboured in places, the action sequences serve as a saving grace. There are definitely some innovative camera shots during the fight scenes, and the car chase near the beginning is certainly spectacular. My highlight however has to be the most ridiculous skydiving scene since The A-Team. Credit where credit is due though: this scene was actually shot in free fall!

Whilst this film may be a enjoyable little watch on a Saturday night if there’s nothing on TV, when it comes to European comic book adaptations, leave it to Tintin.

4 STARS

James Landale’s political close shave

Sophie Jamieson
-
0
James Landale’s political close shave

Do a quick internet search of James Landale and most of the results will be about his former facial hair. For a political journalist with a couple of decades’ experience in the industry, you’d think he might be disappointed that it’s his dear departed moustache and not his hard-hitting scoops that are attracting the most attention. But Landale is proud of the fact: having reached the £7,000 mark in his Movember fundraising campaign, it’s clear the experience has humbled him, even if it comes with the dubious cachet of making headlines in the Metro.

“I’ve learnt two things as part of this Movember campaign,” he tells me. “One thing I’ve learnt is just how generous people can be in a time of austerity. I think it’s a real lesson for charities, that actually, even though money is tight for many, many people, there’s still a sense of a need to give. That surprised me quite a lot.

“The second thing I learnt is just how much women hate facial hair. They really, really do not like it. Women who were very polite about the campaign while I had the moustache were less diplomatic once I’d got rid of it and let their true feelings be known.”

There’s no doubt that his upper lip was attracting attention: one Twitter user described Landale’s appearance as “an extra from Blackadder goes over the top”. But despite creating such a buzz recently, it’s evident Landale’s real interest is in finding the stories, not making them. Unlike his colleague, BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson, who was notorious in his Oxford days for his political hackery, leading to a position as President of OUCA, Landale has never fostered political aspirations.

Instead, while studying Politics at Bristol, he set up what continues to be the university’s premier student paper, Epigram. He freely admits that while he enjoyed the theory side of his degree, the “nuts and bolts” side of politics held little appeal.

“I loved the Hobbes, the Locke, that’s what fascinated me, rather than you know the nitty gritty comparative politics between how the British system compares to the American system. So at no point when I was studying politics was I thinking one day I want to become a Member of Parliament. It was the theory that sparked my interest.”

I ask whether he thinks that his student journo background prepared him better for being a political journalist than hands-on political experience. He pauses, compliments me on the question, clearly trying to formulate an impartial response.

“I think journalists who have had some kind of political background have the advantage of knowing what it’s like to be political, to think politically, how a party operates. They understand the limitations of politics. They feel it a little bit more in their blood. But equally, those who have started early in journalism by working in student journalism have an earlier understanding of the way the media operates, how to operate. So both are good experience.

“But, to answer the question, how to become a political journalist, the answer should be become a journalist, not become an expert in politics. Because journalism is about finding stories, telling stories, discovering what’s going on, making mischief. And politics just happens to be the subject that I’m interested in and obviously many other people are as well. But not all people who are interested in politics are necessarily good at journalism.”

Landale has not always been a broadcast journalist. Before joining the BBC in 2003 as Chief Political Correspondent for the News24 channel, he spent ten years with The Times, culminating in a stint as Assistant Foreign Editor. I wonder whether his move to television was a tactical one, shifting away from the newspaper market before it suffered abject decline, and before News International became synonymous with phone-hacking and other misdemeanours.

“I’m afraid I can’t claim any prescience about the state of the newspaper market,” he confesses. “I had been at the Times for ten years, I’d had a great time there and it’s a fantastic newspaper. But an opportunity came up and I felt that after ten years it was a good opportunity to do something new and different, to operate and do journalism in a different medium. But I can’t claim that I thought ‘ah newspapers are declining therefore I must move somewhere else’.”

When pressed on the future of the industry, in light of recent scandals and the Leveson Inquiry, Landale is circumspect.

“We simply don’t know what conclusions the Leveson inquiry will reach, it’s got a long way to go. I think, though, that the whole hacking affair has had an impact already in terms of greater caution, in terms of a change in attitudes. The interesting question is how long that lasts, because I think that the crucial driver will not just be new regulatory structures established, but how are attitudes changing in the media as a whole. In the same way with the expenses crisis, the response from Westminster was not just the new regulatory system set up for MPs but also the attitude towards money and expenses within Westminster.”

It’s a curious system at Westminster, with the MPs rubbing shoulders with journalists on an informal level, but all the while the former are acutely aware of their public image and the latter that the next day they may write something utterly derisive on the person they just had lunch with. It seems a constant effort to maintain a sense of balance.

“There are lots of MPs and politicians who I know and I’ve known for a long time; I’ve worked at Westminster for a long time,” Landale explains. “And I’ve had lunch with them, and know them quite well. But still, when they’re standing up at a press conference saying something and I’m standing up at a press conference asking them something, then that’s a professional context and you’re asking hopefully professional questions in a professional way.

“I think the relationship between political journalists and politicians is exactly the same as any relationship between any journalist and the people they’re writing or broadcasting about. You have to get to know them, so that you can report what they’re thinking and saying accurately for the audience, because that’s our job, to tell the audience what’s going on, what are people thinking about, why they are thinking about it, what they are deciding. But equally you have to maintain an element of distance and separation so that you can report without fear or favour. And there’s constantly a line, and you have to make sure you maintain it.”

Nonetheless, it seems even when you scrupulously maintain such relationships, the best stories can come seemingly from nowhere. I ask him what he considers to be the biggest scoop of his career, and his response is something of a surprise. He tells me about an occasion when he discovered that a distinguished New Zealand born poet, Fleur Adcock, had written a sonnet about her sexual fantasies about John Prescott.

“The first line from memory was ‘Last night I dreamt I was kissing John Prescott’. And I wrote this story and I rang up the poet and she was in New Zealand. And she told me how she liked John Prescott because she considered him to be gritty and genuine and Northern compared to Tony Blair who she considered to be soft and Southern.”

His article made the front page of The Times. It was the mid-nineties, before New Labour had seen the heady days of power, and the story ran and ran. Michael Heseltine read the poem aloud in the House of Commons. Another Labour MP appeared from the woodwork claiming to have had a “long passionate, unforgettable embrace” with Adcock decades earlier. Responses flooded into the letters page.

But although there are the highs, scoops like that don’t land on your desk as often as journalists might like. Landale admits that “every day” he sees a story he wishes he’d been the one to break. “The whole point of being a journalist is that you want to be first, you want to get stories first, and if you don’t have that hunger then you probably shouldn’t be in the business.”

1...1,8291,8301,831...2,598Page 1,830 of 2,598

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by Jamie Ashley