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Review: His Dark Materials

By
Harry Phillips
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On the walk over to the Playhouse, my companion told me how during the interview period in Oxford, in a brief moment of respite from the frantic days of uncertainty, swotting and sweating, she took a trip to the Botanical Gardens. She walked down the same path about which she had read so many times, and sat on the bench where in the heartbreaking final moments of The Amber Spyglass, Will looked into Lyra’s eyes for the last time.

For many people, me included, the His Dark Materials trilogy was the most withdrawn set of books from the childhood library. Who wants a four-eyed wizard with a small wand shouting silly words when you can have armoured bears, Oxford, other worlds, the land of the dead, Heaven, Hell, Evolution, love and everything else that make Pullman’s classics so memorable and exciting? So you can imagine the buzz in the theatre on Wednesday night, when finally, Nicholas Wright’s acclaimed stage adaptation by performed by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company had its Oxford debut.

We begin the epic journey where it ends in the book. Will and Lyra, sat on the bench chatting, their words rebounding off the invisible wall that separates their two worlds. The love story that lies at the centre of this book -the theme of love encompassing Iorek’s for Lyra, hers for her father, Mrs. Coulter’s for Lyra, the love between human and daemon – therefore frames the whole story.

The play does not disappoint on the visual front. The mythical world of daemons is handled superbly through the use of puppets which, controlled by on stage actors, capture the movements of real animals often with startling accuracy. The Border collie spins around, its head held up in excitement. The pine martin slinks about mischievously. It is a real treat to see the way these pint-sized companions interact with the characters on stage, often communicating through their movement the emotions that conscious human beings attempt to hide. Mrs. Coulter’s monkey, for example, is as sinister and unpredictable as I remember him from the book, while she is the modicum of restraint and polite decorum. Of course, the bears must get some mention, which puppeteers choose to represent through giant feathery frames and white fur coats. Though imposing, their appearance wasn’t quite as terrifying as I’d hoped – any scraps of fear quickly quashed after encountering a cohort of bears whose accents would better suit a Lancashire soap opera than the bear kingdom of Svalbard.

The acting is good on the whole, especially Lord Asriel, whose main scene in the Smoking room of Jordon College is a satirical treat for anybody who has ever gazed into their college’s SCR and wondered what ludicrous yet brilliant things go on within.

This is not perfect as an adaptation. The writing can be sometimes sloppy; a phrase such as ‘the poor sad stunted souls’ is a meagre reflection of the energy and lyricism of Pullman’s original. The Wagnerian length, totalling about six hours if you combine parts I and II, coupled with a west-end cost of, at the cheapest, £25, are not likely to appeal to time-poor, cash-strapped student. And it saddened me slightly that the show had to end with a cliff-hanger so wrenched and artificial one half expected to hear the ominous drums of the Eastenders ending credits.

Yet all these quibbles melted into obscurity when, as applause broke out, the author himself stepped on stage to take a bow. Awe-struck, tired and furious we’d been sitting looking at the back of his head all evening without realising who he was, we were determined to catch up with Pullman afterwards to find out the thoughts of the only critic who really matters.

‘Well, I love this adaptation’ he told me and my increasingly giggly companion. ‘It is wonderful how it condenses the book without losing any of the content.’ I suggested it would mean a lot to the cast that he should say that. He replied, ‘It means a lot to me as well’. We went away from the theatre spell-bound. The magic of the story had enveloped us from beginning to end and I realised, the soft words of a brilliant man still swirling around my mind, that anything I could possibly say seems puny in comparison.

4 stars out of 5

 

 

Heated debate after St Anne’s students left out in the cold

By
Diana Marx
-

Controversy at St Anne’s college has ended after administrators agreed to turn the college’s heaters back on.

At the start of term the college had adopted a policy of turning the heating off in Trinity term, on the grounds that it would be uneccesary in the summer term. However, students criticised the decision not to turn it back on when the weather took a turn for the worse.

One, who asked that her anonymity be preserved, said she wished “to complain in the strongest and most abusive terms possible”.
“I have to wonder just what i pay battels for – battels that i believe are substantially higher than the average – if i cannot control the heating in my own room. Last night I went to bed fully dressed and still could not get to sleep, I was so cold.”

“I have to wonder whether the college authorities care about their students.”

Many students complained that they had not been warned or informed of the college’s decision, and that the lodge was refusing to give out electric heaters, as it had done in earlier terms.

One college resident circulated a petition demanding that the college reverse its decision, which received several dozen signatures. Finally, on Wednesday, the college turned the heating back on.

Bursar Martin Jackson refused to comment on his reasons either for the initial decision to shut off the heating or for the subsequent climbdown.

Students, however, welcomed the move. One, who had been involved in the petitioning campaign and aksed to remain strictly anonymous, said “I am overjoyed. My room was freezing; I was having difficulty sleeping and I couldn’t spend extended amounts of time in it. I feel that college had a somewhat radical reaction to environmental and economic concerns, which was in danger of compromising the welfare of its students. I am pleased that they responded reasonably once they had been made aware of the situation.”

St Anne’s has a recent history of heating woes, with Jackson last year apologising after two successive terms in which boilers broke down in various accomodation blocks.

Balliol shell-shocked after tortoise’s death

By
Nicky Henderson
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Balliol students have expressed their sadness at the death of their college tortoise, Matilda.

The tortoise, estimated to be 17 years old, did not wake up from hibernation. It is thought that a prolonged illness and a particularly cold winter contributed to his death.

Balliol JCR President, Iain Large, said, “Such a loss can never be easily borne, but with welfare provisions and Testudinal memorial services at full deployment levels, we believe that we can pull through as a community.”

Matilda was donated to the college in 2006 by Oxford alumnus Chris Skidmore. He also donated Matilda’s sister, Sampras, to Christ Church College at the same time.

The role of tortoise carer is a JCR official position, currently held by Jack Gilbert and Michael Marks. The constitution states that the role of Comrade Tortoise is to care for the tortoise and train him for the inter-collegiate tortoise races.

Marks said, “My fellow Comrade Tortoise, Jack Gilbert, and I are indeed extremely upset about the death of Matilda. He had in fact been ill for quite a long time, hence why Balliol did not participate in last year’s race.”

Both Comrades have come under scrutiny following last Sunday’s JCR meeting which launched an enquiry into the reasons for Matilda’s death.

Iain Large stated that Gilbert and Marks have “not had the most successful time in office, with 100% of the college’s tortoise community dead under their auspices.” He added, however, they may still be redeemed if they can find a replacement tortoise.

The JCR have added to their Standard Policy that the student body will “endeavour to replace Matilda with a new, not-ill, race-winning, tortoise, as soon as possible.”

The JCR has also ruled that the Comrades Tortoise will have to run the tortoise race if a replacement tortoise cannot be found in time. The Comrades Tortoise will be forced to eat an entire lettuce before starting in order to combat the natural advantage of a human over a tortoise in a race.

The College Hall has also resolved to serve only lettuce for an entire day in a move that Large states is a “sign of respect”. He added, “Slow but steady she may have been, but in the race to our hearts, Matilda was the clear winner.”

Michael Webb, a first year Balliol student, stated that Matilda was a “wonderful, warm and compassionate tortoise” that Balliol “loved and will mourn as a friend.”

Oxford archaeologists lead memorial excavation

By
Rishi Stocker
-

Oxford archaeologists are to begin work on recovering the remains of the Australian and British soldiers who fell in the Battle of Fromelles in July 1916.

The mass grave at Pheasant Wood was discovered in May 2007 by archaeologists form the University of Glasgow. It is believed that German soldiers buried up to 400 men on this site, which thought to be the largest modern mass grave not related to genocide.

A major operation to disinter the bodies and individually bury them will commence this Monday.

Oxford Archaeology has been drafted in to carry out the excavation and recovery work by the Commonwealth War Graves Committee, an independent, internationally funded organization established in 1917 by Royal Charter to mark and maintain the graves and official memorials of the Commonwealth Service personnel who died in either of the World Wars.

The first step of the task involves identifying the bodies using DNA techniques. It was common practice amongst many of the German soldiers to remove the dog tags of fallen soldiers, and so the identity of many of the bodies is unknown.

Families who suspect that they might have relatives buried at Fromelles are being asked to come forward to aid the process.

The soldiers will then be buried in individual graves in a new war cemetery nearby. It is hoped that the entire process will be completed in no longer than 6 months. A commemorative ceremony is expected to take place in July 2010.
The attack at Fromelles was an unsuccessful attempt to divert German attention away from the Somme. The advance over difficult ground in clear view of the enemy sent thousands of British and Australian soldiers to their deaths within hours.

The majority of bodies were recovered but the whereabouts of several hundred bodies was a mystery, up until the discovery of the site at Pheasant Wood.
Oxford Archaeology is a multi-national team consisting mostly of archaeologists, radiologists and anthropologists from the University of Oxford. Robert Neil and Alison Anderson are the chief coordinators of the project, experts in body identification who were also involved with the mortuary after the July 2007 London bombings.

The Australian and British governments will equally share the costs of the recovery work and DNA testing. The chief objective of the project is to “ensure that these servicemen are buried with the dignity and honour that their sacrifice deserves.”

Review: Rodchenko and Popova

By
Lucy Hodgetts
-

He was the working-class son of a circus performer; she was a rich man’s daughter from Moscow. The Bolshevik revolution threw them together in one the most dynamic cultural shifts of the twentieth-century.

Alexander Rodchenko and Liubov Popova were the original ‘odd couple’ of modern art, forming a breakaway group of artists who wanted to embody the ideology of the new age. While Bolshevik Communism sought to remodel Russian society and overhaul an outdated economy, Rodchenko and Popova were attempting their own revolution. Soon, Constructivism had succeeded in turning the art world on its head.

The Tate Modern’s celebration of the Constructivist movement commences with an exploration of Popova and Rodchenko’s early paintings. Many of the works have never been exhibited in the West before and are borrowed from museums hidden deep in the Russian hinterland.

Popova’s colored geometric compositions are prophetic in their similarity to the Cubist works which were to soon appear in Europe. Abandoning canvas in favour of industrial plywood, Popova was highly experimental, even mixing sawdust into her paint to give her work a tactile quality.

Meanwhile, Rodchenko had already predicted the death of painting and was producing futuristic sculptures based upon mechanical constructions. Russia’s artistic rebels wanted a new abstract art, free from the repression of Realism to explore the infinite possibilities of geometry.

While the early paintings and sculptures are mesmerizing in their modernity and complexity, they are merely a brief prelude to the commercial designs which embodied the tenets of Constructivism with extreme revolutionary zeal.
Rodchenko and Popova sought to ‘constructivise’ the human world. They transformed the theoretical compositions of their paintings into architecture, photography, typography, fashion, theatre and poetry. Popova even created hammer-and-sickle fabric designs for the state textile works in 1923. It is the very definition of kitsch.

‘All of Moscow was covered with our work,’ Rodchenko wrote. ‘We made about 50 posters, about 100 sign boards, wrappers, containers, illuminated advertisements, advertising columns, illustrations in magazines and newspapers.’ Constructivism became the new definition of high art.
The exhibition traces an astounding stretch of creativity. Rodchenko and Popova had designed the blueprint for a whole new Russia: aircraft hangers, chairs, teacups, chess sets, even workers’ uniforms. The Constructivist trajectory showed little sign of waning. The sheer volume of their output is testament to the misguided optimism of the Constructivist cause.

Political posters with slogans such as ‘Keep up the Revolutionary Pace’ combine letters of the Cyrillic alphabet with cut-out images of revolutionary figures. It brims with naivety. This is the beauty of the exhibition, the advantage of viewing an entire artistic movement in retrospect.

Perhaps an entire cultural shift is a bit too much to take in at one go. ‘Defining Constructivism’ can be a little exhausting. Ultimately, Constructivism became a dead end. Quirky utilitarian chess tables gave way to gulags and Stalinism.

The death of the Constructivist dream leaves us felling cold, rather than imbuing us with revolutionary fire.

4 out of 5 stars

 

Water way to feel better

By
Dave Mcleod
-

Fifty years ago life was simple. You’d get old, and then you’d start to worry about your health, while the youth danced carefree amongst the roses. Now, anyone over 50 can barely contain their excitement at the coming retirement, whilst pre and post adolescents alike have become gradually obsessed with ‘trendy’ new ways of boosting their health to superhuman levels. Every week a new berry champions a payload of antioxidants and nutrients: There’s an implicit belief that, if we can just drink enough Strawberry and Banana smoothie, we can undo the effects of last nights Smirnoff (or Marlboro) Red. Self proclaimed leaders of the ‘enhanced water category’, Glacéau, have been paying attention. And so, six neon bottles have hit the cafés of Oxford, promising nothing less than freshly bottled magic to the customer. Vitamin Water strips away any pretence of a cute-sy love for organic manufacturing processes, selling itself purely on the strength of what it can do for you. Ever the sceptic, I called Glacéau on this, and put their drinks to the test to see if this flavour of the month is really worth your £1.95. First up is the gorgeous ‘Spark’. ‘Ever wanted to skateboard down a mountain? …Do a handstand on the wings of 747? …Race a greyhound?’ Man! I just wanted to fix my essay crisis! Thanks ‘Spark’!

The science is less than Romantic. ‘Spark’ is a lethal concoction of guarana (naturally occurring stimulant), Taurine (bull sperm) and caffeine, supposedly sending you straight into the ‘zone’ of higher thinking. I like to think it’s the stimulants, combined with the presumed levels of nutritional pixie dust, that give it the enticing, ‘come play with me’ yellow glow. What’s it like in practice? There’s an episode of Futurama where Fry drinks 100 cups of coffee. Over the episode, he gradually descends into a shaking, twitching, fast-talking train wreck. Eventually, the 100th cup pushes him over the edge, into a sort of zen state, so wired that reality moves like treacle in comparison. This is a fairly accurate reflection of the effects of Spark. Of all the drinks tested, this easily does best on fulfilling its promises.

Revive and Essential, or Purple and Orange to their friends, are designed as the ultimate student assistant; a hangover cure. This isn’t made explicit on the bottle itself, but reading between the lines the principle is pretty clear. Both designed to fully hydrate you, they’re loaded with a good dose of generic super-vitamins too. The application is simple. Drink the purple one as you come in from the usual heavy night with the Archers drinking soc. Pass out in a comfortable position, then drink the Orange one the next morning. In theory, sorted. In America, the craze amongst the (clearly money-rich-sense-poor) student population is to mix your drinks with these, giving you guilt free, healthy fun. I, being scientifically minded, decided to settle for merely getting extremely drunk. Interestingly enough, the drinks actually did something. Not what I was promised, but something.

The-Sunday-after. I was, that morning, still extremely drunk. Giggling, I downed my bottle of Essential, and set off to a morning full of merry, Sainsburys related, mistakes. You might think at this point, that this marked a failure for the centre for responsible hydration. In fact, as the day wore on, events took a most unexpected turn. Having been in this situation before, I know that the evening is typically characterised by the kind of headache and nausea that has me rolling around the floor of the JCR, sobbing for a glass of water, and massaging my temples like Magneto. Surprisingly, I felt fine. I’m not entirely convinced that this was direct result of whatever nutritional voodoo Glacéau are playing at, but it’s difficult still to argue with the results.
Last on the list is the exercise booster, Power-C, which is excitingly ‘dragonfruit flavoured’. The comparison given by Glacéau is with Popeye’s spinach, which seems a little bit of a stretch. In terms of scientific vagary, this is far and away the most fantastical. Promised is beating my granny in an arm-wrestling contest. I’ll settle for a quick rowing trial.

So. The goal is 7500 meters on an erg, in as fast a time as possible. We’ll leave it a day apart for recovery, and start at 8am sharp. Go!
First run, V-Water free. 29:55, a time that leaves me absolutely smashed. Red face, heavy breathing, coughing up scoops of tar…not a pretty sight.
Second run, ‘Power-ed’ up. Surprisngly…28:02! Very, very nearly 2 minutes off. What’s more, I could very nearly hold a conversation without throwing up. What crazed magic is this?!
Standard anomaly? Probably. I think it’s fair to claim it impossible that Vitamin water is going to actually, in the real world, make me a better rower. Or indeed a better friend, a better lover, better liked, happier, or whatever they might promise in the reams of preachy promotional material. The little fitness test highlights something interesting, however. In the same way that I probably didn’t have a religious experience because I drank some yellow squash, and that my hangovers was no worse that evening than any other, I could have exercised just as hard first time round.

You look at a bottle of Vitamin Water, and are confronted by an inner monologue something like this; ‘That just looks like brightly coloured water. They couldn’t be selling just brightly coloured water. The brightly coloured water says it will make me happy! It must actually make me happy! I’ll buy the brightly coloured water.’ And suddenly you’re £2 poorer.
On the other hand, at the heart of all this might be an amazing placebo effect. Exhausted on a Thursday morning, I was trying to write this so I could close my eyes without hearing a voice screaming deadline. Left over from my little experimental jaunt, I had a spare bottle of Spark, the ‘gets you high’ favourite. Downed it, and within about 10 minutes my writers block just disappeared.

The easiest way to get through life is just to trick yourself into things. We make little games when we revise to distract from the monotony, we set little goals of ‘just 100 more words’ when writing essays, or ‘one more chapter’ making notes so that we keep making progress. And maybe there are enough buzz words and optimistic images across the packaging here to convince you that ‘yeah, maybe this can do something to help me’. Which is why I currently feel pretty MDM-Azing right now.

So actually, that first intuition you might have isn’t too far from the truth. When you buy this rubbish, you’re physically just buying some neon coloured, 100 calorie-a-bottle water. But really, you’re also buying a dream. If it makes the morning-after that bit easier, so be it.

Review: Little Mermaid

By
Tanjeet Arora
-

Rather than an exposition of catchy songs and animated talking crabs aimed at preteens, the original version of The Little Mermaid, written by Hans Christian Andersen, is a dark and tragic fairytale about division, separation and unrequited love.

In this version, the finned-princess is never reunited with her prince, rather she is forced to make the impossible decision between murdering her true love or succumbing to her own death. To make it even worse, our protagonist suffers constantly from a pain of walking comparable only to stepping on broken glass.

Director Eva Tausig’s adaptation can be described in one word – ambitious. Physical theatre, dance, poetry and a narrating chorus combine in what Tausig calls ‘self-conscious storytelling’, along with the regular ensemble of lighting and sound effects.

If that doesn’t sound challenging enough, this piece of drama also relies on a high level of audience participation throughout (gulp). The audience is divided into two-the ‘human world’ and the ‘sea world’-which are separated by a net. Simple enough so far. However, as the play progresses they are expected to become part of the cast, holding props, ringing bells and waving bits of fabric around to emulate whirlpools. Most people would associate this with slapstick comedy as opposed to romantic tragedy, but it is undeniably effective.

Symbolism and abstract representation are intrinsic throughout Tausig’s creation. Whether she will succeed in creating the intense, dark atmosphere she seems to strive for, or drown spectacularly in a sea of pretentiousness though, remains to be seen. Considering The Little Mermaid is ultimately a fairytale, a certain amount of cheesiness is acceptable, but unless the script’s delivery is perfect, Tausig’s adaptation may well border on the cringe-worthy and lose the poignancy of the original fairytale.

For those theatre-goers wanting a relaxed evening of viewing, this certainly is not a play for you. However, if audience participation is your kind of thing then no doubt an underwater adventure of giant nets, riotous noise-making and embarrassing costumes is sure to provide a entertaining evening.

3 star out of 5

 

Review: Betrayal

By
Alice Salvage
-

Betrayal tells the story of Jerry’s illicit, seven-year-long affair with his best friend’s wife. Inspired by Pinter’s own clandestine affair, it is a searing exploration of the consequences of infidelity.
The play begins one evening, in the present, with Jerry and Emma meeting two years after the end of their affair. The plot unfolds in reverse chronology to the moment the affair began nine years before. The pressures of moving backwards in time are handled deftly by the cast, who remain resolutely ‘in the moment,’ never letting their scenes be clouded by what they and the audience know happens in the future.
J. Preston Witt is outstanding as Jerry, particularly since the dialogue and intonation are potentially challenging for an American actor. He flawlessly conveys the depth of Jerry’s love for Emma, and it is a testament both to Pinter’s writing and Witt’s acting that Jerry remains a likeable character.
From the opening moments of the very first scene, Cicely Hadman’s Emma competently conveys the awkwardness of her relationship with Jerry, veering between vulnerable and defensive. Although her expression occasionally teeters on the edge of blandness, she manages to convey Emma’s anguish and unwillingness to reveal her true feelings in a truthful manner. Alex Worsnip is excellent as Robert, infusing his scenes with humour whilst maintaining a hint of cold ruthlessness. His nuanced delivery makes the audience question just how much he really knew of the affair. The entire cast does a fine job of delivering Pinter’s dialogue with the pathos it deserves, filling the lines with layered meanings.
Robert Williams does a superb job in his first outing as a director. To tackle a play as complex as this is an ambitious task and he handles it with aplomb.
His direction is elegant and emotive, deftly capturing the intimacy between Jerry and Emma. The simple lighting lets the dialogue and emotion speak for themselves.
The use of news clips to set the date prevents the time changes from becoming hackneyed and, along with the use of flowers, envelops you in memories. The traverse staging serves the intimate atmosphere of the play well, and helps create the suggestion that Jerry and Emma are trapped by their feelings for each other and for Robert.
Betrayal is an excellent production of a fantastic play. It is surely one of the must-sees for the term.

Four Stars

Alice Salvage

Review: Wolverine

By
Natasha Wilkerson
-

Comic book films operate under curious criterion. On the one hand, audiences expect fantastical super powers to amount to gripping action sequences. Simultaneously, these individuals who are able to fly, level buildings, and shoot sticky white goo from their wrists must be vulnerable people who viewers can identify with. X – Men Origins: Wolverine had perfect potential for this, but unfortunately fails to deliver on both accounts.

The film revolves around Logan alias Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), a mutant with superhuman regenerative healing abilities and claws that thrust out of the indents between his knuckles. He seeks revenge for the murder of his girlfriend that was committed by his brother (Liev Schreiber), and as such enlists himself into the ominous Weapon X project to bolster his powers.

The plot progresses with predictability and twists fail to shock at any point. It is hard to care about any of the characters because the roster is so large, none of the important characters are given enough screen time for the audience to empathise with them. Not to belittle the death of one’s lover, but it is genuinely difficult to muster up any sympathy for Logan when his relationships with them seem so artificial.

The trade off between sidelining these main characters is to give screen time for a wide selection of other mutants lifted from the Marvel back catalogue. The scenes where these individuals get to show off their abilities is where the film is at its most enjoyable. Having been unfamiliar with the any of them from the original sources, I found their powers and the way in which they were utilised original and entertaining. Though at times their inclusion does seem forced; several of the characters serve little function other than for entertaining set-pieces that add nothing to the plot. Characters are simply defined by their superpower. There is a mutant called Blob that just gets fatter as the film goes on, made fun of for his size, and used as a human punching bag in a superfluous boxing scene.

This is where the film fails most significantly, the characters are just not engaging. The acting is fine, Hugh Jackman and his brother played by Liev Schreiber do the best out of what little they have to work with, but what they have to work with is very little. The script is woefully wooden: the bulk of the dialogue is used functionally to get from one scene to the next; and when the pace does slow to add emotional weight, the dialogue is painfully contrived.

It could be argued that these criticisms are missing the point; X-Men Origins – Wolverine clearly markets itself as a big, brash summer action blockbuster and to judge it negatively on the basis of lacking character development as being slightly irrelevant. However with the film being a prequel specifically concerning the origins of Wolverine, the feeling of complete indifference to his plight that permeates the film makes for a very hollow viewing experience. Fans of the series will be disappointed, give it a miss and watch the first two again instead.

2 stars out of 5

 

Protesters demand end to Oxford animal testing

By
Rishi Stocker
-

Animal rights protest group SPEAK this week handed over a 65,000-signature petition to Oxford University, condemning the opening of the Oxford University Biomedical Sciences Centre and calling for an end to all testing on animals.

A spokesman from SPEAK said the 65,000 signatures had been gathered for the cause of stopping animal testing at Oxford specifically and were ‘proof of the strength of feeling against its operations among the local community and tourists alike.’

The petition was accompanied by a march down Cornmarket.
Another activist told the BBC “We’re hoping the University will take notice at the amount of opposition to the experiments they do. We were hoping to either get the building stopped, or get it changed to a cutting edge lab looking at alternatives [to animal testing]. The new lab means we can now concentrate on all animals being tested on at Oxford University, and not just the new building.”

The moves were timed to coincide with the end of the World Month for Laboratory Animals, an international campaign with which SPEAK has been heavily involved. The group has organised demonstrations throughout the UK against animal research and testing. Similar groups overseas have also been involved in the month of protest, with one demonstration in California seeing a dramatic confrontation between pro-testing and anti-testing campaigners.

Toby Holder, a spokesman for the pro-animal research group Pro-Test, questioned the value of the petition. “Over the last five years, SPEAK has gathered this enormous amount of signatures, but I’m not sure what it hopes to achieve by handing it to Oxford University.”

“Even if it was 65000 signatures, they don’t have the right to halt the medical advances for the rest of us.”

The submission of the petition comes shortly after a major victory for the anti-testing movement, when the British Union of Anti-Vivisectionists forced Oxford and other universities to publish figures on primate testing, which they had previously refused to do.

The university have released a statement in response to the petition and protest, saying “Animals are only used when no other research method is possible.” The spokesman said further: “We recognise that people have a range of views on this issue. The university has always said the building (the Biomedical Sciences Centre) is going to be better for animal welfare and is supporting research into disabilities and deadly diseases.”

SPEAK’s spokesman dismissed this statement as ‘meaningless’, saying the public should focus on the animals that are ‘convulsing and dying at the bottom of their cages in the centre.’

The group’s website urges tourists to boycott Oxford, urging students and tourists to “Say no to the city that supports corruption and cruelty. Boycott Oxford and say yes to a science based on compassion that actually works.”

The petition has been met by mixed reactions from University students. Robert Smith, a Biochemist in his first year at St Hilda’s College, believes that one should focus on the rewards that animal testing can reap in the field of medicine, while still ensuring that animals were kept as comfortable as possible. “When we think of animal testing cruelty and exploitation are often the first things that come to mind. It is sometimes easy to lose sight of what it can actually achieve. As soon as one looks at the number of instances where new cures for human diseases have been found thanks to tests on animals it becomes much harder to condemn. That having been said I feel that measures should be taken to improve as much as possible the conditions in which laboratory animals are kept. Consideration for the animals’ welfare is equally important.”

A 2005 Cherwell survey showed that 86% of Oxford students are in favour of the university carrying out research on animals, with just 11% opposed. By a similar margin, 84-10, they also supported the new animal research facility. Many students said that the actions of animal rights campaigners had made them more likely to support testing.

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