And finally, develop an intolerance to the outside world. You’ve been at Oxford for a month and already you’re talking in a gay falsetto about pressie drinks, have rediscovered your teddy bear and become slightly afraid of the checkout assistants in Sainsbury’s Local. However unless you’re a member of OUCA you presumably intend to re-enter the world in three to five years, only slightly pasty and jaded. Dons on the other-hand only ever leave the city limits to go on bitchy conferences or dig manuscripts up and therefore have the permanent air of Prince Charles about them.
You have to love them really. They are much like the professors at Hogwarts, with strange names and costumes, sometimes sexually and ethically ambiguous yet redeemed by their quirkiness and the sneaking suspicion that they may just be figments of the imagination after all. Yet whilst they go off to the arctic wastes in search of the northern lights just think yourself lucky that, unlike them, you will one day escape this mad-house.

 The dictator meets his match in the shape of Thomas Corcoran

As time draws the twilight of his days into the realms of dusk, Fidel Castro occupies first place in the hall of the twentieth century’s great survivors. Since he took power on the island of Cuba, he has seen ten of the forty-three US presidents pass by: Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II. In those heady days of 1959, Buddy Holly was hogging primetime radio and The Beatles were struggling to get a gig at the Cavern Club. The changes in the geopolitical environment since then have been immense, but rather than being left behind, Castro seems to have moved along with those changes and indeed acted as a symbol of them. From national guerilla leader to South American legend, from enemy of Amereican imperialism to Soviet client, from post-war leftover to grandfather of the anti-Bush New Left "Pink Tide": Castro seems to embody the history of the Radical Left, past and present.

The days of this frail, bed-ridden figure are drawing to a close, and he has finally decided to tell his story, if in a somewhat unconventional manner: Ignacio Ramonet, who is editor of Le Monde Diplomatique and on the faculty at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, has interviewed him for over a hundred hours and put down the results in a tome of over seven hundred pages. Yet, rather than moulding these interviews into a coherent, structured whole, Ramonet has simply regurgitated them in the form of an enormous series of question and answers, and we are denied even a dialogue of limited sophistication. Such a format is wholly appropriate for a Communist dictator, but completely unsuited to a biography of any form. For biography seeks to present to us aspects of an individual’s personality with which we have been unacqauinted, yet in this instance even the most intimately personal details of Fidel’s extra-political life are somehow bound up as part of a broad political doctrine. Even his beatings by his father are presented as important steps in the early life of a strong leader.

In fact, Castro comes across not only as a soulless dictator, but as an incredibly boring man. The events he describes – his early life in a Jesuit college, his student radicalism, his guerilla war, his battles with American assassins and relationships with Soviet leaders – should be interesting. But when they are recounted by a man who has descended to such levels of sadness that he prides himself on the fact that his abstinence from shaving saves him about ten working days per year, they induce sleep.

Thus Ramonet has produced an horrendous document here. Not only has he created something gargatuanly tedious, he has done something despicable. He has become an apologist for a dictator; a barely-reluctant instrument of political propaganda in the guise of a biographer. His introduction to the novel reads like it has been written by a bureaeucrat in the Cuban Ministry of Public Information, as he descends from the level of political intellectual to that of idiotic apologist. He calls anybody who opposes Castro (and that includes the entire Cuban pro-democracy movement) an instrument of American imperialism, to be lumped together in the same camp as General Pinochet. The repression of homosexuals and imprisonment of political opponents are swept under the carpet after the briefest of mentions: Fidel’s strange explanations are accepted as gospel truth. We can see why Castro ceremoniously presented this book to Hugo Chavez, the suspiciously dictatorial Socialist "Bolivarian" president of Venezuela who has allied himself with Iran – a nation where to display a Communist symbol is an imprisonable offence. It forms the basis of the propaganda upon which he has thrived since 1959: by appealing to left-of-centre sympathisers across the Western World, Castro has managed to prolong the existence of one of the most idiosyncratic dictatorships the world has ever known. We can only hope that Ramonet does not seek to make similar "biographies" in the future. Though I’m sure Kim Jong-il and Muammar al-Gaddafi would pay good money.
 

 Dickens Hard Times

Some consider this work of literature important, and important it may well be; yet it suffers from a debilitating problem which, for many, detracts from such elements as plot, theme, or characterisation – to whit, a disquieting predisposition to (and I see his bewhiskered, sealsome face frowning at me) to…

 by Ruben Tereshenko

A team from Oxford University have helped to uncover the true age of an ancient skeleton, casting new light on human presence in western Europe.The skeleton, named The Red Lady of Paviland for its red ochre covering, was thought to be between 25000 and 26000 years old. However, new technology has discovered the remains to be around 4000 years older than this.Oxford University experts teamed up with members of the British Museum to uncover new ideas about the ways in which people lived. The skeleton was first discovered in Paviland on Gower in the 1820s. Although named a "Lady", it was later discovered that the remains were actually those of a male.Dr Thomas Higham of Oxford University commented that the data was important for "our understanding of the presence and behaviour of humans in thi part of the world at this time." He went on to say that the details might suggest that the custom of burying people with artefacts was in fact a western European trend, rather than an eastern European one, as previously thought.

by Alexandra Hedges
“I like three things: I like cooking, I like eating, and I like writing about food.” These are the attractively candid opening words of Nigella Lawson as she stands up to promote her new book, Nigella Express, at Blackwell’s on Broad Street. She strides in, looking polished and serene, yet her tone is humble and honest. Nigella is not ashamed of her love of food. In a pleasantly self-deprecating manner she admits that she would rather spend her money on out-of-season plums than a new haircut. She rejects the fashion in top restaurants for creating ‘small but stylish’ portions; with hands proudly placed on her womanly hips, she announces, “miniature things depress me!” When asked what her ‘Last Supper’ would comprise, she launches with ease into a lengthy list, requesting “roast potatoes, mash and chips!”

Nigella advocates simple but well-prepared dishes, admitting that she rarely eats out because she dislikes “fussy food”. It is a family joke that the menu always includes roast chicken when guests are expected. When asked whether she has a favourite eating-place, she hesitates, before alighting on a cheap Chinese restaurant she frequented as a student at Oxford, where she enjoyed a plate of salty spare ribs between lectures. Nigella believes that good food does not need to be expensive; She remembers preparing an excellent onion soup in her college kitchen, using ingredients from the local Co-op. She is a fount of useful money-saving tips, recommending lining a cheap pan with ‘Bacofoil’ instead of buying costly non-stick equipment and suggests ordering utensils off eBay.
 

 Nigella believes strongly that everyone is capable of preparing a high quality dinner on a daily basis. She openly admits to having no formal culinary training; she has developed all her skills through experimentation and by watching others. Her new book demonstrates that even a busy career-woman can be a domestic goddess with very little extra effort.  Nigella Express is full of recipes for quick but delicious dishes. Whatever your work routine and whatever your tastes, her book offers a solution, from a roast duck which can be popped in the oven in the morning to be ready and waiting when you arrive home, to a five-minute Mexican dish, amusingly called ‘Speedy Gonzales’.

 Nigella’s passionate enthusiasm for cooking is endearing. She genuinely believes that a minute’s manual labour in the kitchen is more therapeutic than an hour of yoga. She feels she has found her vocation, and for her, nothing could be more fulfilling than sharing with thousands of others the pleasurable experience of good food.

by Lewis Goodall

I confess, I had no idea what to expect from Small Change, but it turned out to be a pleasantly surprising and at times genuinely quite moving production, exploring the relatively neglected but ever-fascinating topic of the mother-son relationship. It does so with aplomb. But what is it abou? Well, here’s the thing: not a lot. But don’t despair; it’s not one of those depressingly ‘post-modern’ pieces that few understand and even fewer like.

The play takes the form of exploring the memories of four characters and their development over time. The two male characters start the play as gawky teenagers, dominated by their mothers. There’s the subtlest hint of Oedipus complex going on here, but for the sake of our souls I’ll gloss over it quickly. By the end, all are emotionally hollowed out, sickened by life, by the mental deterioration of their mothers and the niggling fact that they’ve also never had the chance to sleep together.

There are some quite hefty gripes I have. Quite a few of them are associated with Alex Worsnip’s performance. Occasionally inspired but mostly quite constipated, Worsnip struggles with most of his dialogue. And please, Alex, don’t try and play 16 year old boys ever again, and, if you do, lose the “I’m a teenager therefore I mumble and never take my hands out of my pockets and move my head like a duck” routine. It’s just not a good look I’m afraid. However, I am in danger of being overly critical. His later scenes, where he is playing a more mature, angst-ridden character are far better, and the character’s gay epiphany with Vincent must surely rank as the highlight of the entire play.

This slightly cringe worthy teenage angst is easily forgotten by the stellar performance of Ellen Buddle. I’m not entirely sure that she is actually Welsh, but kudos to her for maintaining the accent, rather than lapsing into a dialectical tour of the United Kingdom which unfortunately befalls the other cast members. For me, her performance as the psychologically unfortunate Mrs. Driscoll steals the show. Everything’s perfect – the hollering (albeit increasingly annoying) agitated Welsh voice, the gaunt appearance (one gets the impression the character is altogether too on edge to eat regularly) – everything screams psychological issues. The only thing missing was an assortment of cats, though what Gill would have thought of that I’m not sure.

The debut of Archie Davies as Vincent deserves a mention. A more confident performance than that of Worsnip, admittedly it often feels he has less to do and appears merely as a side-show to Worsnip, but this is more a fault of the play than of the actor. An interesting future lies ahead I think. If nothing else because my companion for the evening, to whom I turned for any thoughts on the play, could offer only the gem “well, Archie’s a fittie.” Cheers Cheryl. Utterly profound. On a more profound not, we have here a deeply thought-provoking play, exploring the troubled tumultuous nature of human relationships. Surely one of the better things on offer this Michaelmas.

by Frankie Parham
 

It should be harder to go wrong if you start with something simple. Director Steve Loman has attempted to build The One That Got Away on this basis, as it begins simply with a park bench on a cleanly lit stage and continues with a single character entering and sitting on it throughout the performance. Henry (Sky Singh, who admirably shoulders the weight of the show) barely shifts from his sitting position, even though he is keenly searching for his hat and is all the while bombarded with one bizarre encounter after another. Barely halfway through, he has already faced a snobbishly smitten couple, a putrid pensioner and a rigidly mannered businessman.

 All these roles, and many more, are performed by an able cast. Mark Cartwright dons the businessman caricature, before becoming a nagging mother clutching her Primark shopping. Beth William proves all her upper class worth in a similar fashion to Ben Galpin, who tirelessly plays most of the other characters, having to cover just about every accent on the cheap gag spectrum. Roisin Watson also makes regular varied appearances, both as an excitable girl and Henry’s wife of old, Elaine. With such an energetic cast, it seems a shame that, more often than not, the characters they play are incessantly upper class. The cringing drill of prolonged Received Pronunciation is only broken by further cliché: a postman from up north (he’s called Pat by the way), a German spy or another posh guy, but this time with a farcical speech impediment, identical to that of Pontius Pilate in Life of Brian.

Much of the play’s structure is indebted to the all too familiar pattern found in Monty Python and Blackadder: the straight character, on the same (apparently sane) level as the omniscient audience, is pestered by several daft and ignorant idiots. Neither the acting, nor much of the material is at fault (although some of the dialogue could have been clipped), but the play’s reliance on this hackneyed theme is its downfall. Annoyingly, there are moments where the credibility didn’t have to be lost in monotony and could have been saved. Henry ironically talks of the irritation of losing something: “you don’t realise the pain and regret until the object is gone”.  “You get niggled from feeling regretful” and “it all boils…” he continues, but just short of turning over a new intriguing leaf, he finishes, saying: “it all boils to the same thing”. Likewise, the writer Cathy Thomas construes a satisfying twist for the conclusion, but it is predictable and only leaves the audience feeling more confused. The One That Got Away is certainly befitting of its title: there’s a nice ring to it, but the sense – anyone? 

 The One That Got Away runs through November 3rd at the BT in the late slot (9:30pm).   

by Lakshmi Krishnan

This National Theatre production showcases new writing: ‘Chatroom’ by Irish writer Enda Walsh and ‘Citizenship’ by Mark Ravenhill. Both fall under the auspices of the NT’s ‘Connections’ programme, which attempts to fill the need for ‘the best plays from the best writers around for young people to perform’. The goal is ambitious, and a bit over-stated, but I doubt many would dispute its relevance.

Adolescence is the focus of the evening: its peaks and nadirs, passionate pain and moments of euphoric joy. Both writers have admirably captured teenage angst while avoiding cliché, realising that adolescent despair is not static, but rather in flux, interspersed with moments of deep happiness and profound awareness.

Walsh’s ‘Chatroom’ examines the anonymous banter and strange, artificial closeness found on internet chat sites. It opens with a heated conversation between William (George Rainsford) and Jack (Akemnji Ndifornyen), in which William boldly claims that J.K. Rowling ought to be ‘eliminated’. Adults, he says, write silly fiction for teenagers to keep youth dumb and subjugated. Across the stage, Emily (Jaimi Barbakoff) and Eva (Jade Williams) discuss how they feel let down by their former idol, Britney Spears. This amusingly facile dialogue comes alive through excellent timing and well-chosen exaggeration. The young actors do most of the work through their voices; physicality is restricted as they spend most of the play sitting in plastic chairs, inactive bodies in contrast to snappy talk. Rainsford, in particular, shines as the wicked, yet fascinating, rogue William. His gleeful malice peaks when the unsuspecting Jim (Steven Webb) wanders into their chatroom. Jim has real problems: his dad left, his mum hates him, and he thinks he wants to commit suicide. But when William and Eva decide to take him on as their ‘cause’, ‘Chatroom’ takes a turn. Webb’s sweet, self-deprecatory Jim evokes genuine compassion. Here is a character that could easily be over-played as emo and drippy, but Webb avoids this through long moments of direct audience contact. His monologues, delivered as if to a friend, bring a touch of tenderness to Walsh’s otherwise snappy piece. Without giving anything away, I must confess disappointment at the denouement of Jim’s crisis. The tension that built over the course of the production suddenly and unaccountably evaporates. ‘Chatroom’ does, however, pose interesting questions. Is it Jim who has real problems, or the bored teenagers who would instigate him merely to make a point?

In contrast to ‘Chatroom’, physicality is a driving force in ‘Citizenship’. Actors bounce over balconies, dance, smoke, rattle on and off the stage. Slang is used with forceful vigour and great relish. If internet chat was the structure of Walsh’s piece, then the potential anonymity of daily ‘chat’ is the basis of Ravenhill’s. Talk has little meaning as teenagers snog and shag and call each other ‘gay’ and ‘bi’ with slight attention to the significance of these terms. The relationship between Amy (Michelle Tate) and Tom (Ashley Rolfe) is our focus. Tate’s refreshingly brusque, yet tender Amy was the highlight of this production. Her love for a man she knows cannot love her properly is conveyed with just the right measure of self-disgust and nervousness. Rolfe’s conflicted Tom is also strong, and there is a particularly cracking scene between him and the teacher (Richard Dempsey) he suspects might be gay.

‘Chatroom’ and ‘Citizenship’ complement each other well, and although the double-bill might not fulfil all of the NT’s ambitious goals, it is certainly a strong effort in the right direction, showcasing some sparkling talent and providing a fast, witty, sometimes touching evening of theatre.

Chatroom/Citizenship runs through November 3rd at the Playhouse (7:30 pm). 

by Marley Morris

In Edward Albee’s ‘The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?' Martin (Will Robertson), an intelligent, wealthy New Yorker with a wife and son (Stevie and Billy, played respectively by Sarah Nerger and Tom Coates), falls in love with a goat. Somewhat surprisingly, however, this is perhaps not the most shocking revelation that Albee has in store for us, in what becomes a play that discusses most of the major taboos, including incest, pedophilia, and, of course, bestiality.

It is clear from the start that Guy Levin’s production seeks to highlight the contrast between Martin’s secret and the otherwise normal, settled lives of his family. We watch as Martin’s pleasant home life is brutally destroyed by his inability to set firm boundaries on his idea of love. The stage – set up originally in the style of a tidy, unexceptional family home – is slowly torn apart by Stevie’s reaction to her husband’s sordid explanations, culminating in the final bloody tragedy of the play. And although on many occasions the situation is laughable – at one point Martin recounts his experience of going to a meeting equivalent to Alcoholics Anonymous, but for people who commit bestiality – it is rarely light-hearted; a strong feeling of discontent runs through the entire play.

Robertson’s performance, however, is not one that lends much sympathy to Martin’s character. His speech is disjointed and faltering throughout, clearly in an attempt to show that Martin seems to be on a different plane of thinking when compared with his friend Ross’ (Max Seddon) steady realism. Although this works on some level, it can be a little frustrating for the audience (as well as Stevie), and it is hard not to feel that more could be done with the role. Seddon, too, is not quite able to pull off his character’s hard-headed nature, making his betrayal of Martin feel a little out of the blue. With Nerger, on the other hand, we see a much more believable performance: in particular, her scream of agony after being confronted with another detail of Martin’s secret, followed by the casual remark “go on”, works wonderfully.

In fact, for the most part this production brings across the key ideas of the play successfully: we are not just treated to a barrage of taboos, but are asked to question whether certain kinds of love should be permitted or prohibited. The word play is also delivered nicely – when Martin describes the first time he met Sylvia, at the “top of a hill”, both Ross and Stevie separately correct it to “crest”, each in an inappropriately pedantic manner. Yet at times the pace of the production slows, and the rhythm of the dialogue can feel a little artificial. There are some scenes which could do with a little more energy, particularly in a play that is fairly static as a whole. Overall, however, the production is a successful one, which gives the audience a lot to be shocked at, as well as much to think about.

The Goat runs at the OFS through November 3rd at 7:30 pm, with a 2:30 pm Saturday matinee. 

Name a city in the Midlands.  Birmingham.  Well done.  Now name another one.  Err… Having trouble?  You’re probably not the only one.  A friend of mine certainly did when I asked him to think beyond Birmingham, and he lives with two Midlanders.  He wrinkled his brow and said I should give him time to think, so I left the room to make some coffee.  His brow was still wrinkled when I came back in and he was staring at a fixed point in deep concentration.  I drank my coffee.  “Nottingham?”  He eventually ventured.  Finally! It was a bit of a shame that it took him so long when one of his housemates actually lives in Nottingham I thought, but then I realised that he hadn’t finished yet.  I waited expectantly.  “Isn’t Nottingham really in the North though?” he asked.  

Sigh.  Why do people find it so difficult to accept that there is such a place as the Midlands?  Ok, they find it pretty hard to ignore Birmingham – it is England’s second city after all, so most people can vaguely point to it on a map.  But, Brummies aside, the rest of us have to jostle for position in the varying arguments about where the north/south divide is and try and plead that we are most definitely on one side or the other. 

I’m not just blaming people from outside the Midlands for this.  In fact, the worst culprits are those of us who actually live there and still pretend that it doesn’t exist.  I’ll admit it: I was one of the offenders when I first came to Oxford.  I came from Derbyshire and I thought that made me northern.  I liked brown sauce, I expected gravy with my chips and I was certain that the word ‘bath’ didn’t have an ‘r’ in it.  As a scared first year surrounded by so many Londoners, I felt it safest to ally myself with the northerners.  They seemed cool. 

But where was the gang of friendly Midlanders?  Why couldn’t I stand there during the inevitable North vs. South debate and say, hang on, the Midlands is clearly the best place to live?  Why was I so sure that if I said that, no-one would be on my side?  

Maybe it’s because that ruins the whole point of the debate.  If there isn’t a definite line between North and South, if it is possible to be something ‘in the middle’, then things become much more ambiguous.  In the southerner’s imagination, ‘bloody northerners’ live practically at the north pole, not just a couple of miles away in the next county.  And for northerners, the south is practically France.  It’s an alien nation, not t’other side o’ hill.  

Someone from the middle is left to feel a bit like a pariah.  We complicate matters and thus are ignored.  The worst thing though, is that we don’t have our own identity.  I was keen to be one of the northerners because they are seen as being down to earth, tougher than southern ‘pansies’ and good for a laugh, but what are Midlanders?  Well, we’ve got Robin Hood, the birthplace of rugby, lots of ex-coal fields and the Peak District.  I’m not seeing a unifying theme here.  Maybe it is false to look for one, but, dammit, our region is just as good as any other! 

Until more of us Midlanders start thinking like this though, we might as well not exist.  We can’t expect northerners or southerners to do it for us.  Sticking up for the Midlands would be the first step on the slippery slope to admitting that the north/south divide isn’t such a big deal.  So we have to start doing it for ourselves. 

Picture: Birmingham Bull Ring

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