Wednesday 9th July 2025
Blog Page 1987

Right off the production line

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Over the weekend I acted in one of a series of 24 Hour Plays written in response to the election and staged at the New Players Theatre under Charing Cross. Catching up with friends from the different casts, I was reminded how well a lot of the people I did plays with at Oxford are doing. Everyone who directed me at Oxford, for example, is directing professionally, apart from the ones who are still students and intend to go into the theatre when they finish here. A lot of the people who produced the plays I was in have gone into the theatre as well.

When it comes to actors, three recent graduates were involved in Election Night Theatre, three of the actors in the Finalists’ Showcase I was in are at Oxford School of Drama, and another is at Guildhall. As has been the case for many years, a lot of the theatrically minded people from my year group have carried on making plays in the professional theatre. It could be said that this is all the more impressive because Oxford students aren’t taught anything about drama here – but I think that’s one reason why so many of my year group are doing so well. I think it’s the best thing about Oxford drama, and I think it’s something that should be on people’s minds when they consider the kind of plays they want to do here.

Oxford drama works as a free market. At a lot of universities that offer drama courses, theatre is partly segregated. Students doing drama courses produce plays for which other students can’t even audition, so collaboration is capped and controlled by a course whose teachers will also tell you what’s good and wha’ts not. This means that often the standard is higher than some Oxford shows, but the conditions in which students make plays are never going to be as free as they are in Oxford, and the opportunities to learn from your mistakes aren’t as extensive.

Here, we can do whatever we want, with whomever we want. We are free to make any mistakes we like. I think it’s no surprise that a lot of the people given this opportunity go on to do well. Because while students don’t necessarily get any better technically at Oxford, or benefit from training or assistance after they leave, while they’re here they have three years to let their imaginations run wild in a theatre system that does everything it can to safeguard them from personal loss. They can try anything, free from great money worries or too much creative control.

What students can do here is pursue their passions and tastes to extremes. They can do risky things that commercial theatres wouldn’t produce, and prove that their ideas do, in fact, work. Or that they don’t. That’s good too. Better to find out now than on a London stage on press night. As bid deadlines approach for most of Oxford’s theatres, I’d encourage students to think about what they could do here that they might never be able to do again. It’s the risky, mad plays that make Oxford drama uniquely interesting.

Barney Norris is Oxford University Drama Officer

 

Local art for local people?

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Can community newsletters constitute social realism? Inspired by Rose Hill Roundabout, one such publication produced in South Oxford during the 1950s and ‘60s, Maria Pask’s Déjà Vu was developed in collaboration with the area’s present-day inhabitants.

The resulting film has similar features to its subject matter, being at once trivial, long-winded, celebratory, and admonitory. Over seventy-odd minutes, its scenes of varying length present a predictable array of situations – tea-dances, allotments, discussion clubs, bingo games – inhabited by the same five actors and interspersed occasionally with more elusive offerings.

All this is simply and competently put together. It’s also surprisingly watchable: the plain yet colourful visual style, coupled with the improvisatory feeling of the piece, stop all but the most directionless scenes from properly dragging.

Yet overall Pask seems unsure of how best to use the peculiar nature of her source material. Using the same five actors throughout creates particular problems: the actors clearly play different characters in different scenes, and yet have more in common with each other than with the real-life locals whom they superficially interact with. This seems somewhat problematic.
Perhaps a greater difficulty is that the original newsletters (on display in the gallery) are at least vaguely politically and socially conscious, yet none of this finds its way into the film in any satisfying sense. The only way Pask seems able to move beyond the almost mythically parochial atmosphere she constructs is by being deliberately artificial.

The resulting juxtapositions can be quite humorous – an ‘old woman’ (actually one of the actors in drag) namechecks bitterly ‘what the sociologists call “individualization”‘ while railing against the breakdown of family values – yet it’s clear these aren’t supposed to be taken seriously, except perhaps as manifestations of Pask’s own problems in trying to reconstruct history.
It’s possible that Pask is aiming to play up an inherently idealized, artificial view of community in order to show its limitations. But focusing only on the parts of the subject which substantiate this view seems disingenuous, given both Déjà Vu’s original inspiration and also the collaboration it involved. The result is that it falls between two stools.

Upstairs, Johanna Billing’s I’m Lost Without Your Rhythm presents a series of mostly quiet, elliptical and sensitively shot films, often meditating on situations in which the individual is complicit yet constrained by unknown forces.

Success varies – the diving-board dilemma of Where She Is At is let down by lacklustre execution, while the intriguing visuals of Missing Out and the title piece lack substance.

Yet Magic World, by intercutting a rehearsing group of singing Croatian children with shots of Zagreb suburbia, conveys well an implicit sense of the neutral receptiveness peculiar to childhood.

Even more effective is Magic and Loss: as a group of people pack up an apartment, their repetitive actions leave the mind free to ponder the significance of each object handled while building to an understated, cathartic conclusion.

Interestingly, several films have ends which run directly into their beginnings, often making it impossible to distinguish the two. Given the quietness of several of the films, allowing them to run concurrently within sight, the effect given is of truly dynamic ‘moving pictures’.

 

Blind date: Week 5

Paris Penman-Davies
History, Pembroke

Ardent revolutionary looking for nation on brink of civil war, must have nice legs.

The fact that the Cherwell photographer who had been sent to meet us asked us to ‘talk naturally’ despite us having only just met significantly upped the awkward factor, but having received the most basic instruction on punting from a man in a camouflage jacket using a pen and a phone, and with both of us wearing heels, what possibly could go wrong? Conversation was easy, apart from a few gentle crashes, a moment where Emma’s face decided to manually abort any attempt to look cool when faced with a rather persistent fly, and a moment of my own in which I carefully allowed a tree branch to whack me in the face, just so Emma wouldn’t feel left out. Despite her efforts to drop the pole we did eventually make it back, not before she had questioned my assertion that the only reason people go on Cherwell blind dates is because they think they are going to have sex. All in all a memorable day, especially once we had established that we were both better suited to the 18th century.

Chat: Sublime wit and charm
Looks: Julia Moses
Personality: Aggressively sexual
2nd date? Waiting on clinic results

 

Emma Roker
Law, Christ Church

Easily impressed pushover with low standards and bad taste.

Turning up on location at the Cherwell Boathouse ten minutes early, I scanned for signs of a blind-date only to be greeted by a somewhat despondent looking male enjoying afternoon tea for one. So when the lovely photographer turned up and it became apparent that Mr. Miserable was my date, I’d surely be forgiven for regarding the prospect of a two-hour punt with some dread. It was a pleasant surprise, and, quite frankly, a relief, therefore, after somehow managing to set off on our punt, to find that not only was Paris rather proficient with a pole but also a reasonably upbeat, engaging character. Mishaps were inevitable of course; I got bitten by a duck, had an insect collide with my eye and failed in my attempt to punt back – thank goodness he managed to fling a branch into his own face and restore the humiliation status quo. On balance, conversation was interesting (if odd at times), he did all the work and nobody fell overboard; so contrary to initial expectations I felt that the afternoon had proved to be a success.

Chat: Entertaining
Looks: Sunshine would do him good
Personality: Perfectly likeable
2nd date? Could be worse things

Brideshead Regurgitated

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Naomi Alderman’s The Lessons is a dull book about dull people. It tells the story of a group of Oxford undergraduates who fall under the spell of the ‘mercurial’ Mark, have fun, drink too much champagne, leave university and find themselves ill-equipped to deal with the big wide world and the shocking events which pervade it. Or so says the blurb.

In fact, Mark himself never gives much evidence of his oft-discussed charm. He is fractious and pretentious, and his alleged charisma is only found in the allegations of it: Alderman seems to think that by repeatedly describing him as ‘charming’ she can get away with providing absolutely no basis for it. The group of students whom he invites to live with him in his huge, romantic house are equally falsely lauded.

James, the narrator, is a below-average middle-class physicist who is supposedly ‘beautiful’ but whose conversation and observations are so pedestrian as to render entire episodes in the novel obsolete. The best description of him comes from cruel Mark, who tells James ‘All you ever are is a reflection of other people… What are you really? Nothing. You’re all shadows and mirrors.’

The others in the group – highly intelligent Franny, boorish Simon, musical Jess, beautiful Emmanuella – are at best characterised by their interests rather than their personalities, and at worst not characterised at all.

All we really learn about Emmanuella, for example, is that she is rich and that she fancies tall blond men.

Wealth is the other problem in the book. In order to bring all the characters together, Alderman has to pretend that Mark is not a snob; yet this seems so unlikely as to be almost impossible. The main force for social hierarchy comes from Mark’s mother, who disapproves of the group because they are not Catholic.

But this does not ring true at all: with his millions of pounds, vast estates dotted around the world and giddyingly grand contacts, Mark is significantly posher than all the other characters, yet this does not come into play at all in any of the relationship dynamics except for one rather feeble effort by Alderman to suggest that James is in Mark’s debt.

Alderman gives the impression of being slightly in love with her characters: the golden hue which colours their past seems to be not their nostalgia but hers.
There are many dreary passages about staying up until dawn drinking, or giving New Year’s eve parties, but the most naughty thing that ever happens at these events is one episode of marijuana-induced tipsiness. Compared to Gossip Girl or Cruel Intentions, these parties are positively tame.

The Lessons is extremely derivative. It draws on Brideshead Revisited, The Secret History, and The Line of Beauty to create a novel which is a hotchpotch of the worst aspects of each.

The narrative is pacy, and there are some funny moments, but at every stage Alderman lets slip a detail which suspends our suspended disbelief and exposes a flaw in the basic plot. The novel, like its narrator, is composed merely of shadows and mirrors, always failing to materialise into anything resembling a believable, gripping story.

 

‘Where are all these eastern-Europeans coming from?’ ‘Brookes?’

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So wasn’t that fun? The politicians, the cameras, the bigoted old women? The quintennial great electoral circus is what makes politics fun. English students don’t have a big ‘the British nation chooses its favourite author’ contest every five years, with Martin Amis running round the country swearing at people, and Philip Pullman appearing on TV shaking lots of hands while assuring everyone that he’s much the better choice because Amis went to public school, and is hence so posh that he won’t be able to understand the average British reader’s life.

Science students don’t get a ‘Nation’s favourite scientist’ competition, and voters never go to the polls to choose the country’s greatest historian. (Which is lucky, because when campaigning they’d probably just leave anonymous rude reviews of each other’s manifestos on Amazon). No, this has been the time when politics students get to feel like the biggest beasts in town, as everyone else was desperately asking us for our thoughts on the likely outcome of the coalition negotiations. I actually found myself giving a little lecture to a group of choristers at a college dinner the other day, about the constitutional constraints on a Lib-Lab pact, and the relative psephological merits of Single Transferable Vote, Alternative Vote and Alternative Vote Plus electoral systems. Even better, the tablecloth was long enough that I don’t think any of them noticed the Wikipedia ‘electoral systems’ page open on my iPhone.

I spent most of election night at the Union, watching the OCA boys (and a couple of token girls) strutting around in their suits and bow ties, revelling in their triumph. They were all really rather happy, as, after thirteen long years, they finally sensed the moment of their victory over the despised ‘socialists’ [their word] of Oxford University Labour Club. Whenever a Tory candidate won, they would launch into an impromptu round of ‘God save the Queen,’ while the officers stood on tables necking Champagne out of the bottle. When Oxford West fell to the Tories, Max Lewis, their campaigns officer, was seen to get up on a table and announce to the adoring crowd, ‘it was OCA wot won it!’

Honestly, can you imagine OCA campaigning? Knocking on doors, talking to ordinary people in the streets, dressed in velvet jackets and cravats? At least they’d probably deal well with Gillian Duffy. When asked something like ‘those Eastern Europeans, where are they all flocking from?’, the average OCA member would probably give a sympathetic nod, agree with her that the neighbourhood wasn’t what it used to be, and, when pressed about where all the new undesirables were coming from, sigh and give the only honest answer: ‘Brookes.’

 

Exeter fight fee hike

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Exeter College is currently undergoing negotiations with its students about a rise in rent costs which could amount to an increase of 3.5% per year.
The proposal for the increase was put forward at a meeting in college on May 14th, and was initially rejected. On Sunday the college held a JCR meeting, which included a Q&A session with the Rector and the bursar, allowing students to voice their concerns about the proposal.
The suggested rise is due to “a large deficit in Exeter’s student accommodation,” said Exeter JCR secretary Chris Penny.
Penny said that College’s initial plans to raise fees “would take the rent up to £1,600 per term, which is much higher than the student loan. This would mean that students would have to find £800 from sources other than the student loan, and would have to cut costs significantly.”
The lowest tier of student maintenance loan is currently around £3,600 per year, meaning that some students would have to find an extra £1,200 per year to cover the cost of accomodation alone.
David Thomas, a second-year student at Exeter, said that currently, “there is nothing more than speculation; any figures that have been named are just suggestions.”
Frances Cairncross, Exeter College Rector, confirmed that the rent rise “will not exceed 3.5% in the coming year.”
Explaining the decision to increase the cost of rent, Ms Cairncross said the College would prefer to concentrate resources “on providing excellent teaching and on giving targeted help to students in financial hardship”.
She says that the Exeter currently subsidises rent across the board for all students who live in college.
“For those students who genuinely cannot afford their rent or other essential living expenses, the first recourse is help from the bursaries that the University provides (which are the most generous in the country). In addition, Exeter has substantial hardship funds.”
Yet Penny said that, “if they put up rents, the hardship funds would not be sufficient for the entire student body affected by this.”
Although Penny says that the college is “reluctant” to cut costs to services, he believes that “the message that students cannot afford to pay that much is starting to get through to the College.”
“We are in negotiations and haven’t decided on a figure yet,” says Katy Moe, Exeter JCR President, “but we’re looking to get a good deal for both the JCR and the College.”

Don’t try to spin anti-semitism

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On February 8th, Noor Rashid loudly interrupted Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Daniel Ayalon’s speech at the Oxford Union. He claims to have said, “Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yehud, Jaysh Muhammad Sawf Ya’ud” (“Khaybar, Khaybar O Jews, the Army of Muhammad Will Return”).

This 7th century Arabic chant refers to a battle between the Jews of Arabia and the early Muslim community led by the Prophet Muhammad. It concluded with the surrender of the Jewish community of Khaybar and its eventual expulsion under the Caliph Umar.

Even if these were the words used – as opposed to the ‘IdhbaH al-Yahud’ (Slay the Jews) reported by eye witnesses at the time – it is difficult to know what prompted Mr. Rashid to shout this verse. Rashid has stated in the The Oxford Student that “his remark may have been distasteful but was not intended as anti-Semitic,” which “is despicable,” and that he meant the remark “simply as a metaphor for the Palestinian people overcoming adversity.”
The phrase’s actual meaning has not been adequately discussed in coverage of the incident. Mr. Rashid’s subsequent explanations and the coverage by OxStu do not explain the contemporary relevance of, or the mindset behind, the use of this 7th century chant, and utterly ignored its role in the general Islamist debate.

To unpack its fuller meaning, it is necessary to understand the symbolic power of Quranic allusions in the development of Islamism (particularly its violent strains) in 20th century Egypt. The most prominent Egyptian theoretician of violent Islamism during the 1960s is Sayyed Qutb. Qutb, a member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, famously declared in his 1964 book Milestones that all modern societies – Muslim and non-Muslim – are jahiliyyah (an allusion to pre-Islamic pagan Arabia used in the Quran). Thus, Muslims must understand themselves to be in an eternal battle with non-Muslims and Muslims who practice Islam “incorrectly.” Among non-Muslims, Qutb noted that Jews must be fought with particular commitment because of their “conspiracies” against Islam since Muhammad’s times.

So the question arises: How does Qutb’s view of Jews underlay the understanding of Khaybar embraced by successive Islamist groups? And more importantly, how should we understand Mr. Rashid’s allusion to a historical event in which Muslims compelled Jews to surrender?

Khaybar has taken on importance within contemporary political battles. In the Palestinian arena, the political heir to Qutb’s vision is Hamas, which has drawn frequently on the symbolism of this battle. For example, a founding Hamas ideological document is titled “From Khaybar to Jerusalem” and details the status of Jews as eternal enemies of Muslims. Even more revealing is that a popular Hamas chant during the first Palestinian Intifada (1987 – 1993) was none other than “Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yehud, Jaysh Muhammad Sawf Ya’ud.” Or type in Khybar on Youtube: an early result is a Khybar-themed Hizballah promotional video in which Hizballah recruits enact a one-armed salute resembling that of the Nazis.

It is difficult to dispute the intellectual roots of the modern usage of the term Khaybar and its connection to a violent Islamist vision. It is also difficult to deny the explicit connotation of the term in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Hamas, like 7th century Arabs, will be victorious by expelling the Jews from the state of Israel. In both cases, the underlying premise of this phrase is that to be a true Muslim is incompatible with co-existing with non-Muslims and that violent conflict is a religious responsibility.

Mr. Rashid claims to be guilty merely of poor judgment in shouting ‘Khaybar, Khaybar’. He is distraught that a Google search of his name associates him with “hate speech”. Yet, whatever phrase Rashid did actually use, it cannot, in my view, be understood as an innocent Quranic allusion, but rather a deeply symbolic rejection of co-existence among Muslims and Jews. If he knows enough about Islam to quote the Quran in Arabic, he ought to be aware that his speech connotes hatred, religious intolerance and even violence. The Oxford community should not aid his continued attempts to hide under a disingenuous veil of naiveté and pseudo-tolerance.

 

In an earlier form, this editorial mistakenly asserted that Noor Rashid is the Islamic Society representative to Teddy Hall. This assertion was based on this academic year’s ISOC freshers’ guide. ISOC President Aminul Islam, however, has made clear by email that Mr. Rashid “was removed from his position and replaced in early MT [Michaelmas] 2009.” He adds that “ISoc is completely against such phrases being used and is completely against intolerance, the incitement of racial hatred and the fostering of enmity between different groups of people.”

 

 

"Mythical" exam abolished

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All Souls College has announced that it is to abolish its traditional one-word entrance exam.
 In previous years, prospective entrants to the fellows-only College have had to sit a three-hour exam comprising solely a paper written on the subject of a single word. Words in the past have included ‘water’, ‘bias’, and ‘miracles’.
 The highly selective college, which admits only one or two new members per year, has scrapped the famous paper. The final decision was made by a majority of the 75 fellows at a College meeting last December.
 Sir John Vickers, Warden of All Souls, told Cherwell that in recent years the one-word exam has not proved particularly useful in determining candidate selection.
According to Sir Vickers, fellows felt the remaining four papers comprising the entrance process created a better balance between general and subject-specific topics, and that the one-word essay had run its course.
It is not without some sadness that the essay will be scrapped. The one-word essay was considered an important rite of passage for many All Souls fellows.
Robin Briggs, a retired fellow of All Souls, sat for the exam in 1964, when the title was “Innocence”. However, Briggs believes that it was the essays in the specific subject of history which were the real basis for his election as a fellow.
 Briggs said he agrees with the decision to get rid of the one-word question and had argued in favour of it in the past, on the grounds that this particular question paper, one of the five given to each candidate, “rarely seemed to play a significant role in the final choice”.
 Speaking of the fellows’ decision, he said “I cannot possibly know why individuals voted as they did, but it does reflect the discussions by both the examiners and the college as a whole.”
 Elizabeth Chatterjee, one of All Souls’ newest fellows, said that the one-word paper had a “mythical status”. She and her fellow examinees in 2008 were assigned “Novelty”.

Corpus Tortoise wins Corpus Tortoise Race

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Bishop Fox, the Corpus Christi College tortoise, was declared the winner of the 2010 Tortoise Race on his home turf on Sunday.
The President of Corpus Christi College, Professor David Carwardine, was in high spirits despite the inclement weather last Sunday afternoon.
“I am, of course, delighted that Fox utterly outstripped his rivals,” said Carwardine. “I put it down to the qualities that have always been associated with Corpus: determination, commitment, plenty of sleep, a good diet, a little alcohol, and the threat of rustication for failure.”
Jan Willem Scholten, the Tortoise Keeper of Corpus, said that he hoped Bishop Fox’s success would increase his confidence, because “Fox’s sexual performance has not been up to scratch recently.”
Not only did Bishop Fox manage to beat seven tortoise competitors, he also thrashed his two human rivals too. Laurie Blair, a first-year student, was standing in for Oscar, the JCR Tortoise of Magdalen College. Blair also lost to his human counterpart at Balliol.
“I had always expected that the race would be tampered with, and I absolutely suspect foul play. We’ve heard reports of performance enhancing vegetables being used by the opposition”, he said.
The human competitors were handicapped by having to consume an entire lettuce before they could start running, described by Blair as “crunchy and delicious.” William Kelley, a second-year historian at St Johns, said, “Jan Willem pulled off a marvellous coup in organising such a successful race despite the rain.”
The afternoon was not without its controversy, however. The battle for second place threatened to turn nasty when Regent’s Park’s tortoise, Emmanuel, was awarded the silver medal ahead of Will Chamberlain’s own tortoise, James Bond. Chamberlain told Cherwell, “James Bond definitely won. Ask anyone.”
All the money raised went towards Maria Veliko’s Bulgarian Orphanage and Oxford Aid to the Balkans.

Antigone with discounted dildo

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Oxford Catholics have voiced their concern after it was revealed that tickets for the upcoming play ‘Antigone’ wil include a discount on sex toys and pornography from ‘The Private Shop’ on Cowley Road.
‘Antigone’ is due to be performed this Sunday evening at The Cellar, which has never hosted play productions before.
There are rumours that drugs will also be circulating during performances, although director Jess Edwards stressed that the production team will be upholding the Cellar’s strict drugs policy at all times.
Edwards said that the prospect of an S&M show in Oxford had been met with excitement by students.
“What we wanted to do was sell sherbet and sweets that look like drugs, or herbal legal drugs, but apparently even selling talcum powder advertised as cocaine is still illegal.
“The Cellar was very clear in saying no to our idea, but I guess by putting [the play on] in a club we are running a certain risk in this respect”.
Patrick Milner, a prominent member of the University’s Catholic community, was left unimpressed by the production’s marketing.
He said, “I think it’s rather sad if student dramatics are forced to revert to sex, drink and drugs to attract people to performances; the producer can’t have much confidence in the acting ability of the cast. Each can be obtained in abundance through easier channels. It’s all rather embarrassing to be honest.”
Newman Society President Hubert MacGreevey told Cherwell, “I was aware that there was going to be a performance of Antigone coming up, but not that it was going to be a sex-fest spectacular.
“As a practising Catholic, I don’t approve of any aggressive promotion of sexual promiscuity. But let’s be honest: [we know] what lengths undergraduates will go to in order to make a splash and to receive lots of attention from their peers.”
Edwards admitted that using a sex shop discount was a marketing ploy rather than an artistic decision. She described it as “camp, amusing and experimental”, but not intended to cause offence.
The performance is billed as ‘the closest a party can get to a play’ with a live DJ, strobe lighting and shot girls. The actors will move amongst audience members.
The Oxford version of Antione describes itself as a ‘highly sexualised production with a sadomasochism costume theme’.
The production team claim that their version of the play is a “visual way to bring out the excess of Greek tragedy, frightening and relevant to a modern audience”.