Goethe in Blackwell’s basement last term, Beckett on a boat this term, I expect to stumble upon some Ionesco in the Clarendon Centre any day now. Performing The Man with a Flower in his Mouth in Gloucester Green coffee shop Combibos seemed to be one in a long line of theatrical stunts playing themselves out in Oxford this year – just about anywhere except on stage. Yet rather than sullying this well-reckoned piece of modern theatre by distracting us from the true meaning of the text with cheap thrills and self-knowing quips, the gimmick really paid off and actually served to enhance the realism and intensity of the text.

The Playhouse Plays Out scheme aims to reach new audiences with affordable performances in unconventional venues: whilst most of the audience in Combibos seemed like they wouldn’t be too at sea in a real theatre and had probably stumped up a full-price Playhouse ticket fee countless times before, the nature of the performance did give it more of a low-key and accessible atmosphere, with the comforting hum of the coffee machines throughout. Seeing a play for £6 over a latte during a 45-minute essay break is a great way of fitting culture into a hectic student schedule.

At first, there was a palpable tension as the doors to the shop shut and the lead actor walked in: was he going to pull off this intimate play or was it going to be intensely embarrassing? Were the slightly nervous-looking people standing behind the counter the same baristas as earlier or had they swapped uniforms with trained actors? And was there going to be the eternally dreaded audience participation dimension, feared by all, enjoyed by none? Soon, however, the punters were able to relax as the lead actors quickly showed we were in capable hands, it became clear that the baristas were still baristas with coffee close at hand and audience participation was mercifully avoided.

The lead (and only) two actors were Samuel Collings, ‘The Man’, and Liana Weafer, ‘The Traveller’. Samuel Collings did a brilliant job of realistically playing the sort of man you wouldn’t be surprised to be approached by and hear all manner of ‘profound’ and ‘quirky’ things from in a station café. Whilst he did at first strike the tone of a fairly affected and self-satisfied ‘eccentric’, more and more sides to him began to emerge until he became tragically sympathetic and the audience was left visibly moved. Liana Weafer might have appeared to have less of a challenge on her hands: her main function appeared to be to operate as a comparatively normal eye-level and to react convincingly and engagingly. However, in such an intimate setting and such an intensely unusual play, this really was quite a feat and one which she executed with great flair. The director and adaptor, Poppy Burton-Morgan, also deserves a mention as her adaptation and staging helped to make the piece, which could have been quite static, exciting and hard-hitting.

4 Stars

The play was a Metta Theatre production as part of the Playhouse Plays Out series

In 2006, my first experience of Wadstock was cut tragically short by an errant frisbee hitting me in the face. Watching Dot’s Funk Odyssey’s headline set through my friend’s window, I was disappointed to be missing the night’s climax in order to ice my swollen eye. At the time a musically-unattached Wadham fresher, I was unaware of how many more Wadstock experiences I had left to go.

Now a third-year DPhil student and trumpeter for Dot’s Funk Odyssey (DFO), I hold the fairly dubious title of serial Wadstock attendee. On Saturday I played onstage in the DFO headlining set for the fifth year running, and surprisingly, it was still every bit as exciting and energising as each year before. This year we had a torrential downpour and a bar that ran prematurely dry to contend with, but it’s the little challenges that make performing at Wadstock really memorable.

Like in 2008 when a fellow trumpeter’s drunken moshing adventure ended in paramedic attention and a malfunctioning left leg. Or the following year when another trumpeter was so intoxicated by 10 pm that we resorted to pouring three successive espressos from the MCR coffee machine down his neck. This proved not to sober him up in the slightest, but did however seem to imbue him with transcendental musical powers, as he proceeded to improvise a mind-expanding jazz descant over our entire set, while sporting a glazed expression and struggling to stay upright .

This year’s Wadstock took place in the Wadham College gardens and was the first to be open to everyone, not just Wadhamites and their guests. The 19 band line-up included garage rock (Muse covers, anyone?), a ukulele ensemble, singer songwriters and a violinist armed with a digital looper. However, the annual 12-hour festival wasn’t always the large, all-inclusive variety-fest it is today and Dot’s Funk Odyssey (DFO) was formed in 2004 as an antidote to the endless line-up of grunge wannabes that the Wadstock bill used to comprise.

Originally a loose collective of 19 tambourinists and backing singers, by the time I joined DFO in Michaelmas 2006, the momentum of two Wadstocks and a handful of balls had transformed the band into a tight and disciplined group of soul-enthusiasts with intent to funk. In order to survive in Oxford’s slick jazz, swing and a cappella scene we’ve had to get more focussed – we recruit across the university at Freshers Fair and audition new members – but we still push the same aim: funk and soul music to dance and sing along to. It’s a mission that’s certainly worked for us so far. However, neither the cheeky delight in actually being paid to attend five balls a term nor the thrill of filling your favourite Oxford venue (The Cellar, not Wahoo) with dancing fans can compare to our annual highlight – heading the bill at Wadstock.

Six and a half years on, Wadstock still forms the musical pinnacle of DFO’s year. 0th week of Trinity sees us convening emergency rehearsals and engaging in heated setlist debates, whilst our resident arranger Alex Kaiserman throws together our Wadstock special number. Previously, these funked-up versions of recent chart hits have seen us take on Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’, mash-up Estelle’s ‘American Boy’ with Dizzee’s ‘Dance Wiv Me’, and underpin a Beyoncé song with a Rage Against The Machine riff in a number christened ‘Killing In The Name Of All The Single Ladies’. This year it just had to be Cee Lo Green’s ‘F**k You!’ which we delivered to a rain-soaked crowd of dedicated ravers.

The Wadstock day, for performers, is an exciting mix of relaxed open-air picnicking and a slight underlying panic about everything that could go wrong. The list here is pretty extensive and during my five years in the band we’ve seen all sorts including singers being too hung-over by 11pm to sing, drunken saxophonists going missing, broken equipment, lost music and, last year, rioting. As we commenced our final number, Wadham anthem ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, a look of distinct alarm spread across the security guards’ faces as the entire female population of the audience climbed onto the shoulders of their male counterparts. Ignoring instructions to stop playing, we were soon unplugged and engulfed by an audience stage invasion. Add to this the thrill of hearing 800 people chant your name and the sight of your logo being worn on Wadstock T-shirts for the next year and you’ll see why, as Oxford students, we appreciate that this is the closest to rock and roll we’ll ever get. And for that, Wadstock, we thank you from the bottom of our funky souls.