Earlier this year New York anti-folkster Jeffrey Lewis recorded a covers album based on the work of the British anarcho-punk band Crass. Incongruous as it sounded, the resulting album turned out to be a superb collection of intriguing re-interpretations. Oxford’s Exeter Hall was lucky enough to see the last night of the resulting UK tour. After Noah and the Whale’s lovely set of folky shuffling answers the question of what Beirut would sound like if Zach Condon had never visited Eastern Europe, we are treated to the arrival of Jeffrey’s uncle. The academically dubious ‘Professor’ Louie is a grizzled Brooklyn street poet who offers us cautionary tales of ‘cock-a-roaches’ and ‘corporate powah’ before it’s time for his nephews. Jeffrey shuffles on with brother Jack and his band the Jitters. Jeffrey cuts an understated, geeky figure on stage. Surprisingly, given his penchant for lyrical wordiness, he doesn’t interact with the crowd much, which creates something of a barrier in such a small venue. His music predominantly engages with the brain rather than the heart, and the combination of these two factors lead to a low-key atmosphere that settles and spreads like an autumn mist, pervading the evening. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun. The band are energetic, though they’d benefit from a violin to round out their sound. The Crass section of the show, including the particularly rousing ‘I Ain’t Thick’, is played in front of video footage sent in by fans of fireworks, war and home-made animations. Lewis makes regular use of multimedia, and the two comedic highlights are his illustrated story of Champion Jim and his salad-based nemesis Celery Sam, and part 4 of an endearingly earnest series ambitiously entitled ‘The Complete History of Communism.’The band then launches into the most crowd-pleasing section of the show, starting with ‘Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror’, Lewis’ masterwork. A literate, witty, hyper-self-aware exploration into the consciousness of alternative art, it’s the greatest song ever written about being violated by an alt.country legend. The band and audience finally coalesce, as ‘Posters’, an anthemic version of ‘No LSD Tonight’  and the ex-girlfriend baiting ‘Another Girl’ give the gig a celebratory finale.By Carl Cullinane

by Sam PritchardThe Duchess of Malfi is a play about unpleasant people. This is something that could quite easily be upstaged by the sheer melodrama of its ending; the merit of Titus Halder’s production is that it doesn’t allow this to happen. He reads Webster’s play as a thrilling character piece, a struggle for power fought out in small chambers with unsettling intimacy. Work on this show has been nourished by bucket loads of creative enthusiasm and a real understanding of the play. It is a shame that all its elements do not quite coalesce.

When the widowed Duchess remarries against the wishes of her brothers, she subjects herself to a catalogue of indignities and persecution. The violation of her private life also deprives her of any political status. Calder’s staging is expert at manipulating the spaces of the court. We move between cabals in public places and tense encounters behind closed doors. The chorus work, lead by Mwenya Kawesha, is well executed and crucial in creating such effects.

Despite these subtle successes, there is really one central reason to pay your money at the Playhouse. Most of the crap written about the quality of acting in Oxford is just that, a product of earnest self-congratulation. Sian Robins-Grace as the Duchess is genuinely something worth fussing about. She is grippingly natural and quietly affecting throughout her character’s humiliation. This is a woman who moves from a sense of poise and grace to a puling heap at the hands of her masculine tormentors. Robins-Grace creates her with such success that it seems almost inappropriate, certainly at times uncomfortable, for an audience to be witness to such a personal collapse.

Those tormentors are a mixed bag. The casting of Brian McMahon damages the central dynamic between the Duchess and her brother Ferdinand. His performance is tight and twitchy to a comic degree. Never sinister, he is almost always irritating. It takes Jack Chedburn a few simple strokes to play his brother, the Cardinal, with impressive precision. He is a man who masks cruelty with modesty. Carelessly unkind in private, he is a model of false piety in public.

Owen Findley, as the brothers’ agent Bosola, is working harder than anyone else on stage. This is not necessarily a good thing. He mixes wonderfully light moments and a humorous touch with occasions when it seems as though he might spontaneously combust with effort. I was also slightly nonplussed by his habit of acting almost entirely while hovering on his tiptoes.

Tom Wilkinson completes the central quintet of characters as the Duchess’ new husband Antonio. He does just the right amount to convince us that he is a decent man in a disgusting world. His tentative love scenes with Robins-Grace make for the most impressive pairing in this production.
A sense of flare or ignition was really what I missed in this show. A really modern production might achieve more as a shorter and more pernicious blast of bloodletting. Halder has engendered a real consistency of pace and a good standard of verse-speaking. Watching a kind of open rehearsal during the preview, I was impressed by his ideas and meticulousness as a director. I can’t entirely wax lyrical, because watching this production I was given great expectations that weren’t quite met.
It is highly unlikely that there is anything more deserving of an audience next week than the central performance in this play. The production is an achievement, but its Duchess is phenomenal.   

I never had the benefit of Sunday school or a remotely adequate religious education, so my understanding of Christian doctrine is somewhat confused. I had particular difficulty grasping the idea of prophets. How did people know whether they were spreading the Word or just having a manna high?

 Obviously, it’s easy to tell, should your visionary have the courtesy of dropping by in a chariot of fire. But I hear mistakes were made and the son of someone influential got nailed to a cross. Not so cool. Anyway, here we are, one curious resurrection later and we’re still as stumped as before.

 It’s the problem we have with the Student Union election. All these promises of what we’ll get in return for our vote, for our confidence. Three of the candidates appear competent. One rules himself out by having a Super Dean outfit. Or does he? Perhaps this little pastiche parable will elucidate:

 ***

 “Yea!” proclaimed the Returning Officer, “for there shall be a great election to decide kingship of this land during the next year of academe, for which nominations are to be brought forth.” And so four persons brought forth their candidacy, and all beheld them, and all saw that they’re not the prettiest bunch, but you probably still would.

 The first candidate was Olivia, daughter of Bailey, saviour of the Buttery, derived from the great line of Hilde. She pledged great gifts of welfare reform for the Oxonites. The naive younger generation were enticed by her words, but those familiar with the campaigns of Martin of Cluskey and Alan of Strickland were wary of unfulfilled covenants. For the Devil and his Labour Club are powerful, but a flick over past manifestos casts light upon their empty rhetoric.

 “We wish not for mere changes of staffing!” protested the Oxonites. “Our capital is in great need of profound structural amelioration.”

 Lewis of Iwu saw the faces of the Oxonites, eager to improve their capital. He brought them promises not only of profound structural amelioration, but of a conglomeration of phat sound systems and celestial drinking fountains. And it was dubbed the Central Oxonite Venue. All were enticed by the charm of the man and the coruscation of the Venue.

 And at that moment, the austere sage Thomas, much-known for his treatises published in popular Oxonite pamphlets, made his presence known. All knew that he would recommend paying off the Eternal Debt incurred in the construction and maintenance of the capital, and all raised a hearty yawn that could be heard seventy leagues away in Cantabrigia.

 “Hark, Oxonites!” spoke the sage, “Do not let the Central Oxonite Venue beguile you, for expenditure is worthless if it is not endeavouring to repay our Eternal (two hundred grand) Debt to the Universal Hood.”

 The Oxonites were fatigued by the Eternal Debt, and thus they clamoured:

 “Verily, we are burdened by the Eternal Debt, but the Domain of Tryl is inadequate for interaction between the Oxonite tribes, and the Venue would bring indubitable profit to the capital. Be gone, boring fart.”

 The otherwise calm sage blew his lid. “Fools! Halfwit ignorami! You will worship at the Venue, but will find it lacking within two moons.”

 The tribe of Gay objected to this, for they find nothing lacking within two moons. But their concerns were set aside at the arrival of Dean, son of Rob, adorned in the bright raiment of a madman.

 “Why have a King decide all this when we might work on improving our own tribes? For then tribe can render visit unto tribe, without paying respect unto an arbitrarily-appointed figurehead.”

 “And how then might we unite against the Universal?” asked Olivia, Thomas and Lewis, each equally discombobulated by the proposal.

 “On a basis that might be known as ad-hoc,” pronounced Dean.

 “That would not be effective.”

 “Because having a different King every year is…?”
 

These are the four candidates vying for the most important student position in Oxford. On Thursday of 6th Week, thousands from across the University will go to the polls to decide which one of them gets it.
As President of Oxford University Student Union, the winner will represent the views of 18,000 undergraduates and postgraduates to the University, the City Council, the National Union of Students, the government and the world.
It is a sabbatical position that brings with it a salary of around £16,000. But it’s not plain sailing.
OUSU Presidents must contend with irreconcilable student factions on the one hand, apathy among its members on the other. They will be expected to win battles with a University that weilds more power than the Student Union. And they have only twelve months in which to make their mark on an institution that is notoriously difficult to change.
Anyone can stand for the position: all that is required is a £50 deposit, which is returned except in the case of extreme electoral malpractice.
The amount of campaign materials that can be produced is strictly limited and monitored by the Returning Officer, who issues barcode stickers for all posters. Each candidate may only have one webpage, usually a Facebook group, and there are complicated rules governing when and how other candidates can be criticised.
Some candidates choose to stand independently, while others form part of a slate, equivalent to a political party in Parliament. These slates might simply be a group who share a particular vision for OUSU, or representatives of a political group such as Oxford University Labour Club. Only a certain number of candidates for sabbatical, officer and delegate positions may stand in any one slate.
The results for this year’s election will be announced on Friday of 6th week, after which the winner will have more than two terms to prepare for their year in charge.

by Sophie DuncanMost of us know the disappointment and irritation felt, when, approaching the final page of a mystery novel, the author produces a deus ex machina which solves the crime and undercuts all our literary sleuthing. The butler who has an identical twin: the housemaid having run off to join her husband whose existence was hitherto unsuspected. The plot twists of Rhys Jones’s latest production are rather more complex, but the eventual disappointment is the same.

By the final scene of Anthony Horowitz’s Mindgame, each of the characters is revealed to be something other than what they seem. Herein lies the problem: is the revelation that the characters themselves are “acting” -just as much as the actors themselves– worth two hours of previously unconvincing performances?

This is not to say that Mindgame is without its highlights: there are two standout performances, in Tom Richards and Joseph Thomas. Unfortunately, both double the same role – another complexity of Jones’s production is its rolling cast. Sadly, the usual pitfalls of uneven ability haven’t been avoided: delicacy prevents me from telling you on what nights to see the play, but certain audiences will fair far better than others.

Richards, unnerving audiences with his dead eyes and whitewashed face, brings a patrician impassiveness to Dr Farquhar that quickly turns to a nightmare. Thomas, meanwhile, is a sad-eyed Crippen in the same role, pinched and melancholy, feeble and frightening. Mindgame mixes the Gothic and the farcical: both actors hit the mark precisely, but in fascinatingly different ways.

Their opposite numbers, Stewart Pringle and Rob Hemmens, are uneven as true crime novelist Styler. Hemmens is unconvincing, substituting breathlessness for fear at what should be moments of terror. Pringle is rather better, spiky unpredictability suggesting what is to come. Neither, however, makes good use of the dialogue: Hemmens in particular holds an emotional monotone, with darkest revelations in the same register as casual observation. Admittedly, some lines are simply dreadful (I’m not surprised that this is Horowitz’s only play): revelatory moments are reduced to melodrama, but without melodrama’s intensity.

Then again, this could be intentional: after all, most character identities in Mindgame collapse not once, but twice. What, then – aside from Richards and Thomas – can recommend this production? One answer is the set. The company boasts several magicians (including Jones himself) and the complex set promises a feast of misdirection, surrealism and sleight of hand.

This attention to design is half the story of Mindgame, the set disintegrating and warping with the perceptions of Styler. For all my reservations, this is one aspect of the show I absolutely loved. Successful and original design is a rarity in Oxford, and I would be delighted to see Jones further hone his talents in this field. This psychological thriller is “not a whodunnit, but a whydunnit” and if “whydunnit?” was a question I occasionally wanted to ask the director, Richards and Thomas nonetheless provide chills and thrills in the central role. My only regret is that Jones was unable to fulfil his original desire of having every actor play every part: that way, Mindgame would have been a much better show.
Dir. Rhys Jones
OFS 7.30 Tues-Sat
2.30pm Sat
6th Week  
                                

OXFORD University has accepted a scholarship endowment from a Japanese corporation that used prisoner-of-war slave labour during the Second World War.
Student groups have attacked the decision, claiming this to be a further example of the University’s willingness to ignore ethical considerations when receiving endowments and donations.
The Aso Group, a Japanese industrial corporation, has never admitted or apologised for the firm’s use of British and Allied prisoners as slave labour.
In 1945, Aso forced 197 Australian, 101 British and 2 Dutch PoWs to work at its mines at a site known as Fukuoka PoW Branch Camp 26, along with 12,000 Korean slaves. The camp was closed later that year, following the surrender of Japanese forces.
In surrender documents given to General MacArthur at the end of the Second World War by Japan, Fukuoka was listed in a list of prison camps which contained Allied PoWs used by private companies.
Japanese authorities ordered records of the company’s mining activities destroyed in 1945, but amateur historians later discovered that prisoners were forced to work underground for 15 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The Aso-funded scholarship will cover University and college fees, fund return air travel to the UK and provide accommodation at New College outside of term-time.
David Amos of Oxford’s People and Planet Group, which campaigns for fair and ethical investment, condemned the University’s decision to accept money from the group.
“Given the University’s investment history, this hardly comes as a surprise,” he said. “It is time that Oxford University took its ethical responsibilities over investments and scholarships seriously.”
The scholarship will be open to Japanese nationals, or individuals who speak Japanese as a first language. It will also be necessary for them to have a link to the Fukuoka Prefacture, a province in Kyushu Island, where the Aso Mining Corporation’s PoW camp was based.
Harold Newman, National Chairman of the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen and Women, said, “If the Aso group acknowledge that they employed prisoners of war as slave labour, and when they offer compensation to the victims and their families, we would not object to the scholarship.” He added, “We have members of our organisation who were treated harshly.”
The President of Aso Group is Yutaka Aso, a former student of New College who was taught by its current Warden, Professor Alan Ryan. From 1969 to 1971, he studied for a Diploma in Social and Political Studies at New College. In 2005 Yutaka was also awarded the French Légion d’Honneur by the French Ambassador in Tokyo.
Earlier last year Yutaka Aso’s brother Taro Aso, who at the time was Japan’s foreign minister, refused to confirm that PoWs were forced to work for his family’s company. Taro Aso was previously President of what was then called Aso Cement.
Among the war veterans who have demanded compensation is an 87-year-old Australian man who was forced to work at the camp. He sent a personal letter to Taro Aso, requesting an apology and compensation for his unpaid work at Aso Mining Co but received no reply.
A spokesperson for the University said that funding for the scholarship would not come from the part of Aso Group that used PoW labour.
“The Aso Group is an umbrella for a number of companies,” she said. “One is Aso Cement, which was formed from Aso Mining. Aso Cement is separate from the part of the Aso Group that the scholarship funding has come from.”
She added that the ex-Foreign Minister, who is the brother of the benefactor and a previous head of the company, was not involved in the scholarship agreement.
In an official statement, University Vice-Chancellor John Hood said, ‘The University is very grateful for Mr Aso’s generosity, and we hope the scholarship will help to strengthen our ties with Japan, and Japanese students, in particular.”

***What to make of The Wombats? Just another NME chart-topping, animal-loving band from up North? Just another bunch of floppy-haired indie kids sporting hoodies in primary colours and referencing seminal 80s bands? Well, yes and no. On one hand, this scouse three-piece is indistinguishable from the current hordes of guitar-driven indie bands. While perhaps most akin to The Cribs, The Wombats’ influences are diverse and plentiful: a quirky Kooks riff here, a charmingly boyish Blur-inspired lyric there, even a chorus line nabbed from the Beach Boys in ‘Dr Suzanne Mattox PHD’. On the other hand, however, they stand out from the throngs of indie-poppers in their ability to produce happy, smiley hooks out of bitter and melancholy lyrics. Their debut album is essentially one big sugar-coated diatribe.
It is an album which could not be more aptly titled. Whether it be Laura, Louise, Patricia The Stripper (the list goes on), A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation does exactly what it says on the tin, trotting out account after tiresome account of romantic misadventure.Thankfully, however, there are exceptions – most notably, the deliciously ironic ‘Let’s Dance to Joy Division’, which is currently gracing many a radio airwave. And let’s not forget the ponderous plinkety-plonk of the sweetly stoical ‘Little Miss Pipedream’ – the only pop song ever to feature the word ‘fulcrum’!But alas, these are but rare gems amid a sea of Liverpudlian grit. It is this album’s overwhelming sense of familiarity and monotony, rather than its hooks and quirks, which linger on the brain.Do The Wombats bring anything particularly new or original to today’s indie-swamped music scene? No, not really. But will they soon be bringing crowds of you  to the dance floors of PoNaNa or Bridge? Yes, inevitably.By Emma Woods

OUSU Presidential front-runner Lewis Iwu’s campaign actively attempted to seek out information in order to defame another candidate, the Returning Officer ruled on Wednesday.
Iwu’s campaign agent, Jason Sarfo-Annin, sent emails to former Oxford students who have since left the University, trying to find details that would enable him to maliciously discredit Labour Club candidate Olivia Bailey, who is also running for President.
OUSU Returning Officer James Dray ruled that Iwu’s campaign was in breach of rules relating to mailings and use of the Internet to distribute electoral material. He reduced Iwu’s publicity limit by a fifth, cutting 100 posters from his campaign, and fining him £10 from his £50 deposit.
Dray added to his ruling, “It may not sound like a lot but it’s about as strict a fine as I can give, it would normally be 30 or 40 stamps. Lewis didn’t do it himself and may not have known that his agent did it. But his agent was asking for information which was clearly going to be used in a malicious manner, which is a serious offence.”
In an email to Steve Longden, last year’s Campaigns & Membership Officer for the Oxford University Labour Club, Sarfo-Annin said, “We’re enjoying great support from students at the moment, even from a lot of members of the Oxford University Labour Club. However, due to political reasons most of them are sitting on their hands and don’t want to be seen helping us, which is fair enough.
“However, a few have mentioned the fact that Olivia worked for Labour Students, and was forced to resign her position. I know that you know the story. I wanted to get the exact details first hand, I was hoping that you’d be able to give me the details.”
He added, “Naturally, this is all off the record and if we do decide to use this info it will never be traced back to you.”
Longden promptly forwarded the email to members of Olivia Bailey’s campaign, who issued a formal complaint to the Returning Officer.
Included in the complaint was a copy of a similar message sent on Facebook to London Young Labour Campaigns Officer Lynne Wells, and an admission by Iwu’s agent Sarfo-Annin that a similar message was sent to Kenny Young, Chair of Labour Students.
In the message to Lynne Wells, Sarfo-Annin asked for “exact detail and circumstances” of Bailey’s resignation from Labour Students. He added, “I’d like to ask you if you could put some pressure on Stephen Longden or even Kenny Young if you know him. Because of the nature of these elections, it’s very easy to leak stuff without people knowing the source. So anonymity is guaranteed if that’s an issue.”
Figures close to Lewis Iwu’s campaign team have suggested that they will not be appealing against the decision. Sarfo-Annin was unable to comment due to election regulations preventing candidates or their agents speaking to the press.
Labour Club sources suggested off the record that Bailey resigned as National Treasurer for Labour Students to concentrate on her work as new JCR President for St Hilda’s, not having the time to maintain both positions of responsibility.
by Staff Reporters

by Sophie Duncan Dancing girls, confetti and pyrotechnics: Spamalot is the rising star of Big Theatre, dwarfed only by the all-singing, all-dancing, unassailable barricades of Les Miserables. Grown-up actors scramble for the roles created by Tim Curry and David Hyde-Pierce: grown up audiences cheer and stamp six nights a week at The Palace Theatre. Further up the Thames, though, some younger thespians curl their downy lips.

Big Theatre is monied, spectactular and (by definition) successful: all the things student theatre cannot rely on being. Moreover, we often hear that without the social evil that is the sequin (symbol, apparently, of the unfashionable suggestion that theatre should sometimes be enjoyable), the dramatic world would be a better, more serious place. The West End, for instance, would have more room for Oxonian thesps when they emerge as Exciting New Voices/Breakthrough Talent/Very Special Snowflakes in two or three years’ time. This intellectual snobbery is fortunately not absolute. Musicals of Oxford put on top-class productions and the best piece of Oxford theatre I’ve ever seen was Seb Cameron’s production of Company in Hilary last year. Here, then, is the case for Big Theatre in the professional world, and why its detractors should grow up.

Firstly, even geniuses have to eat. West End musicals employ more performers, technicians and musicals than any other UK theatrical form. ‘Performers’ is a loaded term, implying singers and dancers as well as actors. Actors often look down on singers and dancers as not intellectual or serious enough about their ‘art’: this is amusing, since actors often can’t sing or dance. A trainee lawyer or doctor understands the need to be professionally flexible and update his or her skills: trainee actors must do the same. The relative stability of a long West End contract may well one day appeal. Work with even the most prestigious touring company can mean uprooting partners or children, or miserable separation – and this is an inevitability, since London doesn’t guarantee work and turning down all non-London job offers is career suicide. In a career in classical theatre, there comes a time when they should stop offering you Horatio and start offering you Hamlet. If it never comes, you will be climbing over the backs of your best friends for the kind of job you now despise. Most real actors, jobbing actors, take the best jobs they can get, in a range of media, from children’s programming to more adult pursuits. (I’m not advocating porn. Well, I am advocating porn. But only in moderation, and after Finals).

One of the reasons I – and, I hope, others– want to act is to entertain others as well as to provoke. If you look at the faces of theatregoers after a big show, they’re uplifted. Spectacular shows restore a sense of wonder in the audience’s lives, providing a service of escapism and – in Spamalot – a determined message of diversity and inclusion. Meanwhile, London’s most beautiful theatres, many of which now exist solely to show musicals, stay open, and hundreds of people from dressers to dancers go on paying the mortgage.

Where the work of new voices and artists is stifled, Big Theatre is not the culprit. Experimental groups such as DV8, Frantic Assembly and Told By An Idiot are feeling the pinch. After 20 years of peaceful coexistence with the darlings of  Shaftesbury Avenue, Howard Barker’s The Wrestling School has been denied the funding it needs to tour.

I like musicals because I like music, going to the theatre and because my heart has yet to harden into a swinging brick. And finally, all those snowflakes should bear in mind that Thelma Holt Productions shares a roof with Avenue Q. So. Happy November, and good luck with those applications.Sophie Duncan has seen Spamalot three times. Her favourite bit is the gay wedding.

Labour Club candidate Olivia Bailey was penalised on Wednesday for presenting a misleading statement about a rival candidate on her personal website.
Dissatisfaction with the Returning Officer’s original ruling forced Olivia Bailey’s campaign team to unsuccessfully appeal the decision to the panel that judges appeals, Junior Tribunal.
The statement, on Bailey’s Facebook page, said, “I am being open and honest about my political affiliations. All the candidates in this election have their own political views, nobody is completely independent.” Lewis Iwu claims on his own site that he “has no hidden agenda” and has described himself as an “independent candidate” in the election.
Although rivals, both Bailey and Iwu are members of the Oxford University Labour Club, but only Bailey has their endorsement as an official Labour Club candidate. In contrast to Bailey, Iwu is not running on a slate with other candidates.
OUSU Returning Officer James Dray originally upheld the complaint and reduced Bailey’s publicity limit by 20 poster stamps.
Following an appeal that Bailey was entitled to express an opinion about her rival candidate, Junior Tribunal issued a ruling which stated, “Lewis Iwu and Olivia Bailey are in direct competition and so expressions of opinion about any other candidate are permitted. We do find, however, that Olivia Bailey is in breach of SO 3d7i since the statement “I am being open and honest about my political affiliations. All the candidates in this election have their own political views, nobody is completely independent,” is misleading in its implication that Lewis Iwu is not being open and honest about his political affiliations, when we have no evidence to suggest that he is not.”
The panel therefore ruled that Bailey remove “nobody is completely independent” from her website and upheld the Returning Officer’s original fine.
Bailey and Iwu refused to comment directly on the issue, citing election rules preventing them from speaking to journalists. Both candidates will stand for election as OUSU President next Thursday.