A week and a half before showtime, and The Shape of Things is already as slick as a high-class made-for-TV drama. It’s going to be fantastic. That’s all there is to it, really.

The play opens with the art student Evelyn, husky, self-possessed, delicately ironic Evelyn, stepping over a line with a can of spraypaint. Adam, the nervous young security guard, asks her to step back on the right side of the line. She doesn’t. He’s stymied. The conversation has the awkward weirdness of symbolism at this point, and you worry for a moment that you’ve been plunged in medias res into one of Caryl Churchill’s nightmares, but things soon settle into the easy-flowing, dynamic, soap-opera tone that comes to characterise this production.

Evelyn soon twists Adam round her little finger. Before he knows quite what’s happening, she’s sprayed an enormous penis on the priceless statue he was guarding, her phone number on his jacket, and her face all over his dreams. She takes him over, moulding his body, burning his clothes, reshaping his nose, warping his friendship with Phil and Jenny, the play’s only other characters. Twist. Yank. Snip. Then comes the brutal denouement, which transforms all this gentle romantic comedy into stark philosophy.

Sophie King’ Evelyn is the lynchpin of this play, and she pulls off the part with unforgiving intensity. It would have been very easy to play Evelyn with the kind of indie insecurity peddled by Kate Winslet in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but King keeps up a nasty, domineering edge throughout an excellent performance. Meanwhile Joe Murphy brings the same gawky charisma to The Shape of Things that he brought to Equus, reminding you forcibly of Scott Pilgrim landed with Ramona Flowers. Their relationship is credible and compelling, helped along by painstaking attention to little details – the motions of their hands, and the minutiae of their expressions.

Cassie Barraclough, making her directorial debut at Oxford, has stripped this drama down to the point where it is hard to fault. Such flaws as it has – the lack of depth in Rob Jones’ Phil, for example, or the slightly forced rhetoric of the debates about the nature and morality of art – lie more with Neil LaBute’s script than with the cast. This is compelling drama, short on sticky rom-com sentimentality and long on menace and realism.

Lift your battered eighth-week body out of its habitual slump in the library and drag it over to the Burton Taylor for a little over an hour – you won’t regret it. The Shape of Things is straight-up, refreshing and powerful liquor.

It is wonderful thing when writing a press preview to immediately feel welcomed into the family of the cast and crew. Co-Director Adam Scott Taylor took me into a JCR which has been transformed into a comfy dorm room and was clearly delighted with how his production has shaped out so far. Students were warming up and laughing in pyjamas, already in the realm of children play-acting and loving every minute of it. I was asked to sit on the floor (bean bags and duvets will be provided for the actual show) and to relax and enjoy the proceedings. Taylor’s partner, Liam Steward-George, sought me out and was equally delightful, and I felt more like I was a young child in boarding school, being looked after by two kindly teachers, than about to review a play. And this is exactly the impression this clever pair had sought to give. Before the play even starts, you know you’re going to like it. And you won’t be disappointed.

Obviously, being performed in a college room, the play is not awash with technical features (Peter Pan is hardly going to be suspended from invisible wire, floating around the audience’s heads). But this is not an issue in this production. Taylor and Steward-George have decided to tell the whole story as if it were a piece of play-acting, a bed-time enactment of a fairy-tale. Thus, university actors are playing seven year old children who are playing forty year old adults. Such an effect looks and feels easy in this show, and that is a testament to the amount of work that must have been put in to the characterisation; it is not an easy technique to master. Highlights include Will Mendelowitz’s Mr Darling/Captain Hook. His interpretation of both roles is every bit convincing as a child impersonating his father or a wicked uncle. Emily Gill too, as Mrs Darling, is able to capture that same childish hyperbolic representation of her elders. On a similar note, I never thought that a twenty-something year old girl with a splotch of face paint writhing about on the floor in a pink onesie could be convincing as a Newfoundland called Nana, but Rosalind Stone’s commitment to the role of the “child-dog” is heart-warming. I almost welled up when the children “ahhhed” as mean Mr Darling played a nasty trick on her by putting yucky medicine in her milk bowl.
As an ensemble, the cast fit together well. Wendy (Eídín Crowdy), Peter (Michael Gale) and Tinkerbell’s (Azmina Siddique) work wonderfully as a trio, particularly in that famous “shadow scene” (a great piece of choreography ensues as Wendy sews Peter to his shadow, played by Zippy Bakowska, and Tink sulks at their imminent bonding). Similarly, the banter between the lost boys and the pirates fits together nicely; the humour is infectious and I spent most of these scenes chuckling happily to myself.

A quick word too on the innovative staging. The directorial pair have managed to make one sofa serve as a bed, a cave, a house and a means of creating an impression of Peter flying (this itself is reason enough to see the play) and have incorporated every inch of the room into the stage-play-world; I kept having to move my feet as overexcited “children” bounded past me in delight.

The songs, for the most part, work well and will give the opportunity for some fun audience interaction but the only point I would make is that Crowdy’s Wendy needs a bit more projection on her solo as she is sometimes drowned out by the chorus.

With a full band, sixty audience members snuggled up together and more fun than you can shake a stick at, there is no reason why anyone should not see this play. Oxford drama so often takes itself too seriously and it’s nice to see that a team separate from the “OUDS pack” can put on something so uplifting and silly, yet still theatrically well considered and constructed. Go. And if you don’t like it, you’re dead inside.

Before arriving at Wadham’s Moser Theatre I knew nothing about the Borderlands fairy tale of Tamlane, a young man captured by the vicious and possessive Faery Queen. Initially sceptical about whether the medium of dance would be the best one through which to learn this dark and romantic story, I was proved wrong by this powerful production.

When he rejects the Queen’s advances, Tamlane is turned into a tree as punishment. Then Margaret (Sarah Thorp) wanders into the forest, they fall in love at first sight and sleep together, until the Faery Queen and discovers them and steals Tamlane back, leaving Margaret alone, bereft and pregnant. Will the lovers be reunited, and will Tamlane ever return to the mortal realm? All will be revealed at the Moser in 7th week.

A ballet with a modern twist, elegant dancing combines with eerie, ethereal music to create a piece which seems to defy genre. Choreographed and composed by students and claiming to be influenced by contemporary, salsa, modern and flamenco, the dancing is traditional in style but is not afraid to surprise, with the incorporation of unexpected moves, such as some sudden gyrating which would not be out of place in the Bridge, producing great effect.

Particular accord must go to Anja Meindhart, who brings out the frightening, seductive and dangerous personality of the Faery Queen with aplomb. We see her manipulate the unwilling Tamlane with glee, pulling him up from the ground with one finger, and his clear discomfort is juxtaposed with her cruel amusement in their very well choreographed dance, which manages to convey itself powerfully as both a fight and a seduction.

The contrast in atmosphere between this scene and Tamlane’s dance with his true love Margaret is tangible. Their joy is infectious, and I felt involved in their romance, such that when the Faery Queen reclaims Tamlane in a fit of jealousy, and we return to the mood of the earlier scene, I felt the injustice, and was able to share the obvious pain of Tamlane and, later, Margaret.

Robert Walport is an excellent Tamlane, with clear facial expressions conveying the mood, helping the story be understood, and some impressive balancing acts and strength.

There is variation in the quality of the Chorus’ dancing, distracting from their potentially effective ensemble scenes, which rely on everyone moving in perfect harmony with each other. However, with a week still to go until performance I am sure that glitches will be ironed out, and the assurance of the principal characters makes up for this.

A problem inherent in story telling through dance is that details get lost in translation, and although I understood the gist, there is danger that the audience may lose interest through simply not knowing what’s going on.

But with programme notes to help out, this should prove conquerable, and the skill and power of the dancing is worth seeing for itself.

To enthral a generation, you normally need to be a fascist dictator or Pikachu. But J K Rowling achieved it without Ash or swastikas. Her books are the reason you’re reading this, unless you haven’t read them, in which case I’m going to do as the movie does, and not tell you what’s going on. So tough. Go and read the book first.

So far, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (or HP6) has easily been the best, adult and intriguing – though neither as adult nor intriguing as Emma Watson’s eyebrows. In fact, Watson might be the best of the three main actors, although admittedly her only competition is a weedy Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, who plays Ron like a hedgehog facing an oncoming lorry. Heading up the opposing side is Ralph Fiennes, lending some class to proceedings as a re-embodied Voldemort in HP7a, the not-quite-final-showdown.
As I settled into my seat I looked about me. Some people were wearing hats, robes and scars on their foreheads. I shrank back, fearing the worst. Things aren’t helped by the opening, with an obligatory intro of dark scary nights and a big scary castle that cost a septillion pounds of British tax-breaks to construct, painfully, from wood and fibreglass.

As you’re no doubt aware, the film is split in two, so there is nothing resembling an ending. Nor indeed a beginning or a middle. Most disappointingly, Voldemort doesn’t fight Harry except through the medium of burning his scar and, thus, making Radcliffe screw up his face and go, ‘Ah! Ah!’ like he’s having a Candiru fish burrow up his urethra.

In fact, this is about as close as the film gets to sexual tension. Every scene that tries to bring Granger and Weasley closer together fails utterly, as a prevailing idiotic awkwardness kills all chemistry. It’s telling that the sexiest line is Ron’s boast to Harry, ‘Here’s my wand. It’s ten inches, so pretty normal’.

In all honesty, the films have only one thing that’s actually appealing: the design. The props, sets and SFX are really, truly brilliant (though occasionally a little over the top), and the immaculate realism of Hogwarts, Xenophilius Lovegood’s cottage, or Voldemort’s castle really is a sight for bored eyes. That’s ignoring the tent shared by Harry and Hermione which resembles the set of The Greatest Porno Never Made. We live very much in hope.

Without the visuals there’s little reason to recommend this film – it’s no different to the others – yet I’d strongly advocate seeing it all the same. It’ll colour in the recesses of memory and shed light on the dark receding clouds of childhood thought. This is the best book of the series and while we should let our personal imagination flood the magic world, it’s intriguing to see someone else’s stylish conception of Rowling’s work.

George Clooney is one of the most recognisable faces in American cinema, and with very good reason. He’s an infuriatingly handsome man, and his enormous, chiselled face dominates the screen throughout The American. When I sit down to chat with director Anton Corbijn, I put this to him, and he agrees. ‘He can say a lot with very little script. Not many people can carry that off and keep you interested.’ It is a shame, then, that Clooney’s magic touch cannot lend more depth to this beautiful yet empty film.

The story is fairly minimal, with Clooney playing an unnamed gun mechanic, customising weapons for assassins until he is forced to hide after he becomes a target. He stays in Castel De Monte, working away on another assignment whilst avoiding the locals – all except the prostitute Clara (Violante Placido), first visiting her out of loneliness, before gradually falling in love. Sadly, little else happens, and all of the above is dragged out over 103 long minutes.

However, when something unexpected does happen, Corbijin handles it with quick, precise expertise, yet such moments are all too rare. Still, they are certainly visually efficient, and it is in this efficiency that his origins as a photographer become clear, with the film conveying his distinct vision. He shrugs at this, admitting, ‘As a photographer it is a single vision, just you and your camera, which is much easier to stay in control of. With anything that involves other people it is much harder not to lose your direction, and the more people that get involved, the harder it is.’

There is plenty of time for detailed characterisation, but Corbijn neglects this, choosing instead to keep Clooney’s character a mystery. We are not told anything about his past, yet instead of intriguing its audience, this narrative silence merely reduces our sympathy for him, and by the end, one inevitably loses interest in him and the film.

Nonetheless, The American is not wholly without merit. Corbijn uses his photographic eye to create some stunning shots – the Italian countryside has rarely looked this idyllic. It should also be said that both Clooney and his co-star Placido have real, tangible chemistry; the sex scene is especially intense, with Clooney revealing rather more than usual. I ask Corbijn about his approach to this, and he reveals, ‘I filmed it in a way that you feel sexuality rather than seeing it, which I thought was important because I know a lot of sex scenes usually don’t feel sexual… I don’t think it was easy for George, though, because he never does that in films; you don’t see many love scenes of George Clooney and definitely not a scene like this.’
Yet despite Corbijn’s clear enthusiasm for the film and the effectiveness of his visual style, these are not enough to hold one’s interest throughout. He hasn’t created something to stand up to his last film, Control, something even he admits: ‘I know that I can’t top Control in the critical sense – the recognition was so immense it is just something you can’t aim for.’ It is a shame that his expert balancing of both aesthetics and story has here been lost. This time around, Corbijn only seems to have concentrated on the former, and the result is a beautiful yet oddly cold experience.