THE OXFORD University Freemasons’ Lodge is at the centre of a national campaign to recruit undergraduates into the organisation.

The 'University Scheme', started by Assistant Grand Master of the Freemasons David Williamson, targets Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Durham, Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham, in addition to Oxford and Cambridge universities.
The scheme is the result of success by Oxford and Cambridge masonic societies in enlisting students. In a statement, the United Grand Lodge of England said, “Oxford and Cambridge have proved just how popular Freemasonry can be at universities. I hope we can help to make those same wonderful experiences available to more prospective masons.”

Geoffrey Bourne-Taylor, Secretary of the 'Apollo' University Lodge on Banbury Road and former Bursar of St Edmund Hall, said that the organisation took in huge numbers of undergraduates every year. “They come in droves, they're queuing out the door,” he said. “We can barely take in any more than we do already. Around 50 undergraduates join a year, seven to eight are initiated at every meeting.”

Bourne-Taylor said that out of 350 University Lodge members, around 30 were current undergraduates and between 50 and 100 were recent undergraduates.

“We have an awful lot from Brasenose and Christ Church, five to six members from Teddy Hall, and three from Pembroke,” he said.

Bourne-Taylor said that many prominent public figures were active members of the University Lodge, but could not disclose their identity. “I can think of a dozen household names who are still members, who don't come as often as they used to because of public commitments, but they take it [freemasonry] with them.”

To become a Freemason, members must profess a belief in a supreme deity and be prepared to have any criminal convictions scrutinised. Only men may join the University Lodge and be of good character and reputation.
Bourne-Taylor said that entry was open to all, but existing links to members were important. “If your father's a Freemason you've got a head start. If one joins, then the whole rugby team joins.”

The University Lodge allows special privileges for Oxford students, including the opportunity to join at an early age. “The qualifying age for Freemasonry is generally 21 years, but the Lodges of Oxford and Cambridge have the unique distinction of exception from this rule and may initiate members under this age,” its website states. “Members pay half of what normal Freemasons would if they're under 25.”

Chris Connop, spokesman for the National Grand Lodge of England, said that students were attracted to a number of the organisation's moral virtues. “Freemasonry is a positive force in society, it encourages members to be good citizens, to uphold the law, and encourages values of tolerance and understanding. It supports old-fashioned values as a lot of young people find themselves bored with current youth culture. The type of people attracted are usually traditionalists,” he said.
In changing times, it gives them something to get their bearings from. They love the formality, they love the dining, and they love the egalitarianism. Last Saturday we had 110 people at a meeting. It's very convivial, but I've never seen anyone drunk.”
Connop also emphasised the Lodge's charity work, which was undertaken to support the University. “We support the undergraduate hardship fund in the name of the lodge, giving up to £4,000 a year,” he said.

Jenny Hoogewerf-McComb, OUSU Vice-President (Women), said that the all-male nature of the Freemasons made them seem out-dated, but initiatives to involve students suggested positive future changes. “Personally, as a feminist, the concept of all-male networking clubs is a bit old fashioned. This shows that they're changing focus, and might one day admit women.”

Bourne-Taylor responded by defending the all-male nature of the University Lodge. “I think women don't like that sort of thing, it's as simple as that. I think men tend to gravitate towards clubs. There are two Grand Lodges for women, who are fiercely independent,” he said.

Britain has an estimated 270,000 Freemasons and there are around 11 million worldwide. The University Lodge claims to be the oldest University club, founded in 1819 at Brasenose College with the permission of the Vice-Chancellor. Prominent former members include John Radcliffe, Cecil Rhodes and Oscar Wilde. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Prince Leopold were former members and Masters of the Lodge.

Obligations are those elements of ritual in which a candidate swears to protect the "secrets of Freemasonry", which are the various signs, tokens and words associated with recognition in each degree with. A person must achieve the title of Master Mason before he is entitled to participate in most activites.

Partying, politics and pessimism Laura Pitel goes in search of the young people of Lebanon
In most places in the world it might seem distasteful to lose yourself in hardcore trance on the site of a former civil war massacre. But this is Beirut and every Friday night, dancing on hinged wooden coffins, the city’s young and up-and-coming do just that.

BO-18, the city’s longest standing club, is packed full of Lebanon’s wealthy students from the American University of Beirut, who turn up in Ferraris and flash their cash with an extravagance that the Bridge’s VIPers can only dream of. As Anthony Haddad, a 22 year-old political science student, tells me, “Partying is absolutely crazy here. Whether it is an incredible resilience or a desensitised hedonism that allows the Lebanese to party even under showers of bombs it is awe-inspiring.”

But whilst this breed of wealthy Lebanese may be able momentarily to forget about their country’s problems, a reminder of the instability is never far away. Just a mile across the city, tenacious supporters of Lebanon’s political opposition camp out in tents under one of Beirut’s busiest highways, watching the revellers walk past on their way to the pubs and clubs of Rue Monot.

The predominantly Hizbollah protesters are there in an attempt to force the government to call early elections because they feel that some sectarian groups, namely Shia muslims, are underrepresented in the Lebanese parliament. “We are here to demand full participation of all different groups in the political decision-making of our country,” says Mohammed, a 24 year-old taking part in the protest. 

The beginning of this year saw huge protests in favour of both Hizbollah and pro-government factions, but it’s been almost five months since the opposition set up camp and Lebanese politics has reached a standstill. Rather than feeling invigorated by their nation’s lively affairs, many of Beirut’s young people are pessimistic and disillusioned. “I feel crippled by the sit-in,” says 18 year-old Roula Hajjar. “Even though the people in the sit-in are my fellow Lebanese, they are a constant reminder of how much my future in Lebanon is not in my hands.” The sit-in is badly damaging the economy as well as virtually closing off Beirut’s popular Downtown district, which is encircled by barbed wire and armed soldiers.

“Here politics dictates whether school will be closed down the next day, whether there’s a quarantine, or areas you have to avoid going through because of an assassination or a dismantled bomb sighting,” says Anthony. “Politics has the unfortunate effect of paralysing daily life here. It necessarily consumes the Lebanese, students included.”
British university students would find the level of participation in politics amongst their Lebanese contemporaries unrecognisable. At the American University of Beirut, one of the Middle East’s most prestigious institutions (and the first in Lebanon to get onto Facebook) the charge around elections for the Student Representative Body puts the fervour of Union hacks to shame.

Affiliations with the country’s real-life political factions (including, rumour has it, large amounts of funding) make elections highly pertinent as results often predict and mirror events on a national level. “When a political party wins at the student level the party at the national level boasts it,” explains Lynn Zovighian, editor-in-chief of Outlook, AUB’s student newspaper. “Results of student elections are printed in all national newspapers and are taken very seriously.”

Like Oxford, the University acts as a practice arena for Lebanon’s political players, and many of the country’s big names over the past forty years – Walid Jumblatt, Samir Geagea and George Habash – were AUB-educated.
For the days surrounding the elections security fears are so high that the army is brought in: last November saw 350 armed soldiers turn out to patrol the university campus. Their concerns are not unfounded. During the civil war the University became a political target, with kidnappings, assassinations of members of staff and a bombing of one of the main buildings.

But despite being necessarily engaged in current events, many young people are frustrated and feel that important issues are being overlooked amidst the obsession with politics. Unemployment is one such problem. Although the Lebanese are fiercely patriotic the majority of rich, well-educated twentysomethings feel compelled to move abroad, allured by higher salaries and greater stability.

As Khaled, a 23 year-old currently living in Canada puts it, “I was born and raised in Beirut and there is nothing I would like more than to live in Lebanon. Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that it is virtually impossible to make a decent living there. How sad to know you can never make your way in your own country.”
“Why is everyone is trying to do things their own way?” asks 19 year-old Ziad, a student from South Lebanon. “We are living together, in a country that is smaller than a village in the western world and yet we have so many sections and leaders that tear us apart rather than uniting to build a better Lebanon.”

Unity is the word on everyone’s lips. Tiny Lebanon is home to eighteen different sectarian groups and it is viewed as crucial that they put aside their differences in order to avoid another civil war. Sadly, even attempts to unify the country become a political competition. In February, amidst tension surrounding the anniversary of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, a striking poster campaign was launched. ‘I love life’, read huge red posters written in English, Arabic and French, dotted across the country. The group behind them claimed to be politically neutral and non-religious but, like every other message in Lebanon, the posters were politically loaded.

Funded by the pro-government Sunni/Christian/Druze coalition, the ‘I love life’ slogan was a stab at Hizbollah leaders’ gung-ho warmongering and repeated claims that they do not fear death. Unsurprisingly, retaliation followed, with an “I love life, undictated” campaign quickly following suit; the opposition’s dig at the government’s bowing down to the wishes of America and the West.

Roula is not convinced by the campaigns to unite the country. “Although Christians, Muslims and Druze interact now more than ever, the sectarianism and prejudice is always there,” she says. “In Lebanon you are always categorised according to your name and where you’re from.”

Alex, a 21 year-old student from northern Lebanon, sees hope for the future. “The older generation is more inclined to promote divisions between groups here,” she says. “Younger people, in theory at least, want to put aside their differences.”

But Anthony is reluctant to attach significance to any outward signs that may present the illusion of unity or consensus amongst young people in Lebanon – the spending, the clubbing, the beach parties. “I think that is wishful thinking of Western observers and the thin, privileged class of Lebanese that can afford to participate in Beirut nightlife,” he says.

“The sad reality of the matter is that while a Sunni and a Shiite wouldn’t mind clinking wine glasses at a bar one night, if push were to come to shove they probably wouldn’t hesitate to take up arms against each other the next day.”

It’s a pessimism shared by many. The only thing that seems to unite people here is a tired, world-weary attitude towards the current political wrangling and a genuine dread at the thought of another civil war. “I have a very bad feeling for the days to come,” says Hussein Abbas, a 23 year-old shop keeper, with a sad smile. “I pray to God, for the sake of my beloved Lebanon, that I am wrong.”

“You can’t judge a book by its cover.” But when the book is the new album from Brazilian baile-funk hipsters Bonde Do Role, and the cover depicts Rio’s famous Christ the Redeemer statue shooting red lasers out of its eyes, it’s hard not to make assumptions.

As Brazilian purveyors of sleazy electro with an energetic front-woman, comparisons to CSS are inevitable, and well founded. The key difference is that, despite opener Danca Do Zumbi threatening “death to your speakers” in a Darth Vaderesque voice, Bonde’s lyrics are almost all in Portuguese. This may be a blessing, as some of their lyrical efforts would make Peaches blush. Bonde cite their influences as “Nasty stuff. Sex with food, general perversion”: “I saw a whore/I put my tongue into her asshole/And my tongue came out all dirty” intoned one of their early efforts, and album track James Bonde imagines a gay 007.

The producer is Diplo, M.I.A’s collaborator on Arular, and the latter’s quickfire beats and trumpet bursts are recalled on Gasolina, one of ‘With Lasers’’ standout tracks. Bonde do run the risk, however, of being dismissed as a novelty act: orgasmic groans in Office Boy; arcade-game zaps in the awful Quero Te Amar, and Tieta sounds like Aqua in Portuguese. But with highlights like Solta o Frango, with its catchy call-and-response refrain, the band nevertheless packs a whole lot of fun into half an hour.

The big, dumb, garish, funky, sleazy, colourful carnival of ‘With Lasers’ is guaranteed to get the party started.

Daniel Roberts

We Hughsies are a boring lot, or at least so it would seem. When I went down to our lodge last week to get some entertaining anecdotes from our college porters I was sure that fourteen years of working in college must have yielded some funny stories. After all, we are students, aren’t we? This is supposed to be the time of our lives when we do crazy things just because we can. Sadly we seem to be somewhat lacking on the wild front.

Still, at least one fellow student seems to have got the idea. Apparently, in the not so distant past, the porters rushed to one particular building when the fire alarm went off. When they arrived however, they were met by the smell of sizzling burgers. By all accounts they had a hard time convincing the inhabitant of said smoke-filled room that using portable barbeques indoors was not a good idea.

Fire alarms seem to be a bit of a theme, actually. Another recent mishap involved a student dropping his cigarette during a covert smoke in the bathroom, thereby setting fire to a towel. Despite having unlimited water close at hand said student decided to run away. After all, who would want to put out the fire and miss out on the glory of such a magnificently stupid act?

After these two gems, however, the well of porter gossip I had been tapping seemed to dry up. Apparently, within the porter’s circuit, St. Hugh’s is not known for its outlandish pranks. Perhaps its because we’re all so tired by the time we’ve made it all the way back from town that we can’t be bothered to create mischief and mayhem (yes, we are in a different parish to the rest of the University…). On the other hand, I hear from our morning porter that Teddy Hall have a book in the lodge recording all the entertaining incidents that have happened there over the years.

I’m not willing to let this drop though – surely Hughsies must have been entertaining enough to rival Teddy Hall in the past? I ask whether any post-club fondling is ever caught on our many CCTV cameras? The porter seems offended. thinking I’ve implied that one would only take a job at the lodge to get access to free porn that we provide. He does catch other entertaining acts on tape though. In my defence, they shouldn’t leave the trolley for wheeling suitcases to people’s rooms lying around if they don’t want me joy riding it down the disabled ramp after one too many sambukas at Ponana.

To retain any credibility at all when talking about classical music, here’s a tip: call Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto “Rach Two”. It’s a bit of a buzzword; it sounds like you know what you’re talking about. Jargon is three-quarters of all music snobbery, so go with it and you’ll be fine. Rach Two, then, is one of the most romantic pieces written for the piano, full of soaring leaps and impossible fingerwork, alternately brazen, gentle and moving.

There’s a grandiose elegance too, and an emotional complicatedness that belies a few very simple themes. It is a beautiful piece, and soloist Will Stuart does it justice. His driven performance was full of feeling, retaining nonetheless the precision and musicality that the piece demands. He played with style and flair, a quickness that gave the concerto energy without rushing it: a youthful interpretation that didn’t sacrifice subtlety for vigour.
The concerto is unusual in its emphasis on the orchestra, especially in the first movement, introducing as it does most of the main themes. Conductor Ben Woodgates gave an expanded Christ Church Orchestra an excellent tone, swelling under and around but not overtaking the piano’s notes. Christ Church Cathedral’s acoustics felt a little muffled, but that was probably due to the large and appreciative audience. Stuart’s was an accomplished performance that left a friend in tears: “it’s just so beautiful,” she said. And it really was. But to the bloke who farted just as the third movement began: time and a place, my friend. Time and a place.

Adam White

I feel like I’ve been on one of those jerking, rattly, helter-skelterish roller-coasters. I’m finding it difficult to coherently fit all the glimpses and fragments of inverted reality into some linear fashion.

This is not undesired, however; the play is described as a ‘big ball of bizarre theatrics.’ Bizarre is an understatement, the show is a Björk dress of a spin on entertainment. The problem with this rogue attitude towards convention is that there is a tightrope walk between the luminous creativity, energy, and eccentricity of a director/writer like Jack Sanderson Thwaite, and presenting entertainment in a manner coherent enough for an audience to appreciate the wackiness. It is a quadruple loop the loop, bruise your head repeatedly on the safety harness sort of a feat to pull off, but equally astounding to witness if done successfully.

The show is a series of manic, energetic, and balmy sketches, which are light hearted and blunderingly silly. They have principal, recurring characters, and there is a tenuous thread between the scenes which is sometimes so puny as to be terminally threatened with extinction. However, there it remains, against all odds, evidenced now and then by the players’ mocking of form by ‘accidentally’ dropping catch-phrases from their other personas, culminating in one sketch based entirely on the actors doubling up and playing other characters. This is one of the most successful sketches in the play, it is no easy task to make humour work with solely the parody of style and physiognomy as a comic foundation, and it works with sophisticated ironic ease.

The comedy is illogical and absurd, the idea being that the Irreverence Realm is replete with surrealism, the humour of this idea is Pratchett-esque in its creation of a world which is a ludicrous version of our own. So the ideas are psychedelic; we have desperate, pasty-faced fruit and vegetable addicts, a slow motion stick ‘em up gang, and a ‘wise man’ with a special hat. Some flow like molten chocolate joyously towards rapturous laughter, whilst others give us a more jolting, stultified ride. The ideas are impressive, and Sanderson- Thwaite’s talent is in evidence abounding. Comments on Python influence are unavoidable amongst student comics, as they are amongst comics in general; such is their ubiquitous, silly influence on sketch shows and with non-sequiturs and daftness replete, this show is no exception. This is not a threat to the internal-organ- rattling enjoyment of the kaleidoscopic treats on display, but the lack of pace at times is a difficulty.

The comics themselves are a pyrotechnic, harmonious mix of personalities, which adds a depth to the humour. One needn’t worry about a show in the masterful hands of Alex Craven’s dry, sardonic wit, James Rupasinha’s nervous fumbling and gaping, worried eyes, and Sarah Hillman’s hilarious physical presence. All these elements create a symphony of comedy which is alone worth seeing. James Callender has the challenging role of ‘compare extrodinaire’ who speaks to the audience and is our fourth-wall-breaking guide. He is intentionally verbose and nervous, the reason why is unfathomable, as he ends up looking like he soiled his underwear. Although he has moments of brilliance, he is in danger of being upstaged by his multicoloured hair. However, he does have the gravitas and charisma to pull off a difficult role.

The show is a dizzy whirl of flashes of comic delight and moments of jolting halts, the problem is the difficulty in pulling on the reigns of form and style to add a cogency which will stop it from descending into a free-fall of things that seemed like a good idea in the pub last night. Generally, the play achieves this, and is a very good offering for student comedy, but when roller-coasters make my head spin too much, I always want to get my feet back on firm ground.

Charlotte Brunsdon
 
Dir. Jack Sanderson-Thwaite
BT, 7.30pm

Remember the last two weeks of April? Remember the cricket, the punting, and the blissful sunshine spilling out all over the quads? Remember the Met Office blithely telling us that it was the driest April since records began in 1659?

Flash-forward to May, the only one of the summer months that falls entirely in Full Term, and gaze disconsolately over a stunning vista of grey on grey. That is, if you can see it at all through the driving rain and forbidding clouds. The only people more miserable than the punters, picnickers and cricketers, are the global warming theorists. Where did it all go wrong, indeed?

There is, of course, an interesting point to be made here about how our expectations change. A British summer is the worst kind of oxymoron – the type that provokes wry laughter from foreigners and indeed, most natives. Whole years drifting by without a real cause for short sleeves haven’t exactly been unheard of. I think it’s only been the last couple of years when we’ve not only had real hot weather, but a lot of it. So rather than dropping everything and rushing out at the first rays of sun, we’ve gone steadily on in libraries and workplaces, safe in the knowledge that it will still be there at the end of the day. And that’s why, I suppose, people have been stomping around the streets of Oxford taking the rain as a very personal insult. “How dare you be raining?”, we ask the sky. Never mind that it’s early May in Britain, where’s the sun?

This is perhaps compounded by the fact that the clothes people choose to wear always seem to depend on yesterday’s weather, rather than today’s. If it was sunny yesterday, people will be wearing T-shirts and shorts, cotton skirts and flip-flops, in scant disregard of the puddles. It always seems to take a couple of days before it really sinks into the collective consciousness that wellies are the way to go. It’s hard to be Little Miss Sunshine when you’re wearing a miniskirt while it’s five degrees.

And, of course, Oxford is so very nice in the summer time. There are the traditional pursuits, already mentioned, of cricket, eating strawberries and cream and messing about on the river. But the simple, day-to-day course of life is also immeasurably better. It’s all in the details: the scent of flowers after dark, the intense colour of the sky, cobblestones baking in the sunshine warming your feet. It’s an old cliché, but it’s true, everyone really is much more cheerful. Total strangers smile at you and hold doors open. Even the people drifting past in sub fusc seem a tiny bit more serene. The only real disadvantage is that hot weather brings the tourists out en masse – hands up who’s had to dodge a Japanese-language tour taking up most of Broad Street – but it’s perhaps not too steep a price to pay for the glorious weather.

Still, there are probably wonderful things to be said about rain, although it must be said that right at this moment I am at a loss beyond the decidedly Aristotelian “it makes the plants grow”. Perhaps there is some moody poetic beauty about the dreaming spires seen through a blurring mask of rain. Still, I’m not convinced. Any beauty there is palls after ten solid days of thick grey clouds and endless downpour. There’s only so far you can go to wring literary significance out of stormy weather. Ultimately, it all comes down to the decidedly unromantic feel of rainwater down your neck, cars whooshing past through six inches of dirty water, and a sudden need for paracetamol and cough syrup. In short, there’s nothing like rain for making everybody miserable.

So I shall hurry to look on the bright side – no pun intended – and remind us all that it might just be improving. No longer must I run down Holywell Street with the Cambridge New History of India on my head because the heavens are opening in cacophonous fashion above. It’s been a gradual process. At the beginning of the week, the sun came out for twenty whole minutes and rumour has it that there were people seen engaging in sporting activity. Later on, this was followed by whole days of sun, and again, a renewed hope that maybe this time we could trust it would stay. I’m particularly enjoying the nights, at the moment. The heat of the day lingers, becomes deliciously cool and still, and it’s a joy to sit outside reading or having a picnic. Let’s hope that it stays, if not for good, or even long enough to develop an even tan, but long enough to dry out my umbrella and eat ice-cream without excessive need for self-justification. And, of course, long enough for the general mood of soporific misery to leave the city with the fog.

But perhaps I have been a little too scathing about the rain. If we pause to consider the even brighter side, fifty years from now, whilst we all roll in battered wheelchairs across the dried, arid sands of the Greater South-eastern Deserts of England and Wales, watching salamanders loll in the baking sun, we can look back to the good old days at Oxford, when temperatures were not hot enough to melt lead, and occasionally, water even fell from the sky. Take your comfort where you can find it is the moral of the story, I guess. More importantly, take an umbrella, and sing in the rain while it lasts.
Iona Sharma

It was always going to be interesting: six of Oxford’s finest young playwrights paired with six directors, randomly assigned to a group of actors and then given twenty-four hours to produce an original piece of theatre, all in the name of charity.

The results were varied, both in content and quality. The majority clearly fell vitctim to a conflict between the grandiose ideas of the playwrights and the time constraints imposed by the exercise. The Gingerbread House in particular, while to be commended for its artistic vision, was dull and practically incomprehensible, and surprised everyone by abruptly finishing within ten minutes.

The two most enjoyable plays, Alex Christofi’s The Reception and Cathy Thomas’ Who Needs Jesuits? kept it simple. The former centered around three slightly-inebriated bachelors slumped in a forgotten corner at a wedding reception, while Thomas’ delightfully irreverent production began as a stereotypical family breakfast that soon degenerated into bedlam. Both managed to be funny without seeming contrived and featured some excellent one-liners – but the highlight had to be an enthusiastic dance from Jack Farchy wearing nothing but a polka-dot mini dress. Also deserving special mention was Tom Campion’s touching play about the relationship between two cantankerous old men, roles which were played to perfection by Jonny Totman and Peter Clapp. And, as one would expect from any self-respecting playwright hailing from Wadham, there was of course a gratuitous and completely unnecessary reference to Nelson Mandela.

While, conceptually, the idea of the 24 Hour Plays pulled all the right strings, in that it tested the creative skill of the playwrights and the initiative of the actors, the productions were, by and large, over-complex and over-ambitious, and as a result unpolished and unclear. In many of the plays the audience was left confused and frustrated, and dare I say it, wishing they had spent the last two hours watching re-runs of The OC. Ultimately, in a production with such unique time constraints as this, simplicity would have been preferable as opposed to trying to make artistic statements at the expense of coherence and clarity.

Sarah Davies
Dir. Various
Keble O’Reilly

Summer’s onset leads, like the turning of the seasons, to a crop of plays performed in the balmy environs of college quadrangles, and it’s with almost equal unstoppability that we see at least one of these, every year, to be Shakespeare’s tale of Woman’s love for Beast. The sheer frequency with which it’s performed makes this most luminous and stylish of comedies subject of a close watch, even cross-examination.

In an imaginative bid for reinterpretation Sophie Duncan’s production in Oriel shifts the play into Blitz Britain, transforming the fairies into abducted evacuees in lost-boy style fairy-schoolgirl outfits and giving the Rude Mechanicals even more the air of a group of earnest misfits as Home Guards. It’s a lively and interestingly skewed view on a wonderful show and if the weather holds one well worth your money.

That said, it’s difficult these days to say with the properly casual air, even to an Oxford readership, “If you only see one Midsummer this year…”. A judgment particularly difficult in this case as Sarah Branthwaite’s OUDS Japan Tour offering has not yet seen the light of day. It must truly be a tribute to the quality of the drama scene that two entirely seperate Midsummer Night’s Dream casts could exist side-by-side.

However it’s the decidedly un-military Mechanicals who light up this show, most notably John-Mark Philo’s enormously entertaining Bottom. ‘Fabulous’ would perhaps be more apt; the rattling, fustian camp of his performance transforms Bottom’s unwilling seduction by the queen of the fairies into a hilarious spectacle of a groomed, healthy young man trying to let an amorous lady down easy: Philo has the presence of a hippo kickline.

Particularly entertainingly warped is the ‘chink’ in Maxim Cardew’s marvellously deadpan Wall, through which Philo steals a moment’s romance with Jessica Wild’s Flute, a woman playing a man playing a woman with poise. Flute’s mourning for the play-dead Bottom often feels like the play’s real ending and Wild’s sweetly solemn is carried into a stirring, candlelit conclusion on Oriel’s library steps.

Robert Morgan
 
Dir. Sophie Duncan
Oriel College, 8pm

As a ‘New Writer’ in Oxford, what do you feel are the obligations of the modern playwright?
Obligations…I think the obvious ones are firstly to entertain and secondly through entertaining bring the audience into contact with ideas and viewpoints that they wouldn’t necessarily have considered otherwise. The way theatre is now, it’s never going to change the world, but it can act in more subtle ways, and I believe it’s about presenting ideas and getting them into the public eye, getting the audience to consider them, rather than simply hammering home one point of view. I’m not sure I’ve fulfilled either of them yet. But I’m trying.

Which pieces of New Writing have you particularly enjoyed this year?
There are a number of writers I admire. I think the my highlight was Kathryn Rickson’s Bare Feet on a Cold Floor, which was the most assured piece of student writing I think I’ve ever seen, and the best thing to grace the Moser. I really enjoyed the 24 hour plays last week, it was fascinating to see what people came up with. Ben Arnold is definitely a writer to watch – he’s got a unique style and some great ideas. And Tom Crawshaw’s NWF winner was great fun, too.

Are you working on anything at the moment?
I’m working on a couple of things – I’ve got a show going up to Edinburgh called I’m a Lab Rat, Get Me Out of Here! and a play hopefully on next term which is a little darker called Knuckles in her Heart, both of which I’m really looking forward to.

Should we move on from the Past Masters?
It’ll always depend on what the audience wants to see. I personally want to see new ideas and interesting takes on old conflicts. If that’s done through reinterpreting classics or through brand new plays then so be it. I like watching new plays because it’s like meeting new people – it’s exciting, it can lead to more than what it starts as and it’s always got the potential to make you feel something completely different.

What place should New Writing take in the future of the theatre?
‘New Writing’ seems like a rather grand title. Obviously people will continue to write plays, and some of them will have the potential to define an era or capture a moment in history. I think writing is becoming more and more accessible, so hopefully we’ll see a bigger diversity of playwrights and new plays – it’s all about expanding the horizons of the audience (without them noticing, because then they usually get scared and run away).