Give me your tired, your poor and your huddled masses…” If ever a place in England could speak these lines as that famous symbol of immigrant opportunity west of the Atlantic does, it would be a stretch of road smack–bang in the middle of London’s East End. For fleeing Huguenots in the 18th century, escaping Jews in the 19th and Bangladeshis in the 20th it was a place of economic and social refuge; that place was Brick Lane. Monica Ali’s debut novel immortalises the idiosyncrasies of the immigrant experience, focusing on a Bangladeshi woman and her trials and tribulations as a daughter, wife and mother. The narrative journeys from rural Bangladesh to Tower Hamlets with Nazneen its protagonist. In London she experiences a fettered lifestyle, firmly under the thumb of her husband’s “advice” despite her own embryonic attempts to forge an independent existence. Far from being illiberal, her husband, Chanu, is neither religiously inclined nor particularly adherent to native custom. He revels in his self-implied superior status, a man “always learning” in comparison to other Bangladeshis who “miss the pull of the land”. Meanwhile, Nazneen listens with serene confidence to her husband’s platitudes on everything and anything, and her children’s difficulty with their culture. Interwoven are glimpses of Hasina’s life through letters she sends to her sister, Nazneen. Later, young Karim enters Nazneen’s life, sparking hidden desires and catalysing Nazneen’s path to self–discovery as a woman. Unfortunately the Booker–Prize– nominated Brick Lanefails to live up to its press blurb. Euphemistically called “epic” and “Dickensian”, some may claim the lack of dramatic momentum is necessary in order to correspond realistically with the minutiae of Nazneen’s slow life, but it still doesn’t adequately justify the plodding pace. Like Dickens, Ali creates cartoonish characters instantly recognisable through what they look like and say; there’s Chanu’s fat self and pseudo–intellectual ruminations, Mrs Islam’s arthritic body and tiresome advice and Islamic groups with fundamentalist leanings, animations that become clichéd and painfully skewed. But Ali must be commended on her poetic and practical vision of the immigrant experience. She gives us haunting aperçus wrought with pathos into death and illuminating observations on the tantalising memory of the motherland, the immigrant’s disillusionment with the host-culture and the question of a multicultural identity. Ali implies in many ways that an immigrant’s old-school thinking has no place in a modern world where free will spells out happiness for the individual, a world where choice not convention must determine human action, after all says a character, “This is England, you can do whatever you like.”ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

VICTORIA CAULFIELD & GEORGINA TURNER seek sensual pleasure in Greece Clutching our factor 30 in true Brit style and looking for a change of scenery from the dreaming spires, we set off this summer to the land of sensual pleasures – Greece. Later, falling off the plane at a time when even Hussein’s is closed, collapsing under the weight of our rucksacks, and with a bus door slamming in our face, we were wondering when the holiday was going to begin. First stop was the medieval island of Rhodes – better known for its 18-30’s resort of Faliraki – where sex is as readily available as Retsina. After a year in the Oxford desert we couldn’t resist a stop. Sadly, fate became our contraceptive. Several hours later we woke up, blurry eyed having slept through the neon lights and the cries of Nelly’s, “its getting hot in here, so take off all of your clothes”. Lindos appeared to be our new destination. A rather more cultural one than had been intended but at least the rape alarm could be tucked away in the handbag. Tor, horrified at the thought of another “monument day”, decided it was an appropriate time to email the parents and impress them with the unexpected culture, rather than the usual suntan news. Yet before we knew it we are sitting in the ‘Luna Bar’ with cocktails being thrown our way by a big motorbike rider/cocktail bar tender called George. The decision is made and publicly broadcasted: George is the new guy in our lives. The size of a sumo wrestler, clad in a black vest, with tattooed muscled arms rippling, he is a surprising softie at heart, with a soft southern Texan drawl. As a local of Lindos for eight months of the year, he gives us a useful insight. Not only a local information point but George also offers free alcohol and provides us with private tuition in cocktail education. Achieving the feats of getting two past salmonella sufferers to drink a raw egg concoction. As the tax receipts pile up under the ash tray after numerous cocktails and shots are consumed, the enormous George doubling before our eyes, we make our broadcast. “George is the best cock…t…tail maker in the world, got something for…for everyone…we love him”. Collapsing back on our stools, Tor starts chatting to some English forty year old with a blatantly fake cockney accent and the subject seems to be Chemistry… we wonder what men find impressive… One thing for sure – it’s not working. Podge starts talking to a sailor from Plymouth who has never been further in his ship than Ipswich. Our own Faliraki is perhaps not so different after all. The e-mail Tor’s parents received that night was not the one that had been intended, the computer in the bar suddenly having a surprising appeal in the early hours. Luckily for us Greece may have its Falirakis but just around the corner is that perfect hangover retreat. Genadi, south of Lindos, proved to be ours. The peace was only disturbed by the formidable silhouette of George on his Harley Davidson scouting the beach for us – an abrupt reminder of our promised lunch date from the night before. The rapid dive under the sunbed was the only hindrance to our recovery… Contrary to what you might think, Greece does have places where you can whip your top off without the penalty of a £1500 fine. In Ikaria, a remote, secluded island where fishing offers tourism some competition, we discovered some more unusual sights than on your typical day at the beach. The nudist beach at Naz is the ultimate in liberation. Not only for the chance to bronze those always glowing in the dark bits, but also an impressive hippy commune, if you take the wrong turn. A few needles, and unintelligible conversations later we finally were pointed in the right direction. The hippy commune and nudist beach stand as a bizarre foreground to one of the most ancient ruins in Greece. Sun goddess Podge was in heaven – although finding it rather difficult to focus on the pages of Robinson Crusoe. The man to the left who should definitely try the latest anti-wrinkle cream, and the very fit Swede on the right with his porn star body were not conducive to our reading habits. The least pleasurable bit of any holiday is the actual travelling, not least when you are a definite Class C candidate. Somehow the rucksacks didn’t do much for the Class A quality we thought we could pass as. Made outcasts on top deck for the duration of a 22 hour ferry journey, our cafeteria no more than a sign, we certainly knew our place. Any attempt at entering the ’Saphire lounge’ below was thwarted by the little grey haired Greek man whose English amounted to “shoo”. Thankfully with bargains struck on a victorious treble win at backgammon, we claimed our bodyguards, Joseph and Jack – English gentlemen all the way – to guard us while we froze into sleep. We definitely felt like the stereotypical Bridget Jones when one day we were forced to ask some people where we were. I think the tourists who we targeted thought we were completely past hope when they initially replied, “Rhodes, Greece”. Then, when they replied “Mount Smithe” we gaily set out on a mountain hike without a map – all in aid of maintaining our mixed lacrosse fitness of course. After three weeks Podge finally weaned typical Brit Tor off factor 30 and was glad to report that the tans reached a satisfactory level. While we found that Greek sensual pleasures remain a myth, evident only on graphic sexual position postcards which could even outdo More’s ‘position of the fortnight’, Greece certainly gave us that alternative to the dreaming spires. Maybe looking back it was that clichéd girly holiday, but as the ancient Greek saying goes, “Girls justa wanna have fun!”ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

Eddie Jordan is variously described as a fun-loving family man, an independent maverick and an incredibly astute businessman. On the eve of the final Formula One race of the 2003 season, I caught up with him at home to find out which of these images best fit the man himself.
Eddie gets a lot out of life, has a lot of fun, but as he says to me, “coming from Ireland, it is very much in the culture there that you shouldn’t take yourself to seriously.” He’s well aware however, that Formula One is a pretty serious business, worth billions of pounds worldwide, so at the same time he insists, there is often a requirement to focus and concentrate, and for him this requirement has been there for a long time, and is very much a part of who he is.
I ask him whether, at my age, he had this same concentration, and how he went about enjoying himself: “In many ways I took myself more seriously at your age than I do now, although I was always dreaming, but there was this need to be considering your future, how you’re gonna get on in life, how you’re gonna make a living.” Surely an attitude prevalent amongst many students at this University. He started out as a banker, but this was brought to a close by his passion for motor-racing, which as he explains, started out as a hobby, and progressed through becoming a professional racing driver, to owning arguably the most successful independent team in contemporary Formula One.
He explains that after a great summer, he is exhausted by this stage of the year. When I spoke to him he was clearly a man in need of a good night’s sleep after some heavy travelling. I ask him how he switches off, what his week consists of, bearing in mind that the racing takes place every fortnight. He works extremely hard Monday to Friday, about 12 hours away at the office, speaking to lawyers, bankers and accountants, hardly anybody’s idea of fun, “but I do normally try to do something for Friday and Saturday night,” and he often plays golf at the weekend.
What about his job does he enjoy, what gives him the most pleasure? Unsurprisingly for such a renowned deal-broker, it is “the buzz” of closing an important agreement, as he has in the recent past with giants Benson and Hedges and Deutsche Posts, which really gets his blood running. Citing how quickly the day seems to pass for him as proof of how much his working life appeals to him, it is clear that he is kept busy, and is completely immersed in what he does, which he adds is in part down to the “happiness he feels at his achievement.”
He goes on to explain this happiness, by looking at where he came from: “there was no motor-sport culture in Ireland, just mostly football, so that made it more difficult, and I had to work non-stop to make the breakthrough.” And what a breakthrough it has been. When I ask him which moments of his life he has enjoyed the most, and of which he is the proudest, he says that along with being present at the birth of all four of his kids, and the day he first met his wife, Marie (the wedding day he describes as being “a bit hazy, after a drink or two in the morning”), he mentions the double win at Spa in 1998. The two Jordan cars, driven by Damon Hill and Ralf Schumacher, came home first and second respectively after many of the other drivers crashed out in the pouring rain.
Eddie is “apprehensive” about the final race of this season, over in Japan, having picked up some points at Indianapolis last weekend, with a seventh place for Giancarlo Fisichella. “It could go either way. With a good race, we could end up fifth in the constructors, but with a poor result, we’ll have done crap this year”. He feels under “a lot of pressure” at the moment, since the Jordan car this season has not been as good as he had hoped, with engine failures, and only one “glimmer at Brazil” (Fisichella won that particular race much earlier in the year.).
When I ask him finally whether he can look at his life objectively and be happy with it, he answers with a wry smile that “maybe when I’m old and infirm I’ll be able to look back on it all and be very, very proud,” but he makes it clear that the stress, and the pressure which he’s already mentioned, makes for an unusually up-and-down emotional life. He claims that he’s “unemployable,” could only ever be his own boss, but as I leave him in his razor-sharp suit, tie slightly loosened, working away into the night at his desk, the burden of such dedication is unmistakable. Yet “irrepressible” is a word often used to describe Eddie Jordan, and I am sure that the good times won’t be long in returning, and he will be enjoying himself again soon.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

MIRANDA KAUFMANN finds out more about our oldest and most controversial habit

Ann Summers has become a high street store, a similar outlet in America called Good Vibrations sponsors National Masturbation month, and the act is central to the plot of films such as the American Pie trilogy and episodes of Sex and the City. We could be forgiven for thinking that sex with someone you love (Woody Allen) is widely tolerated, even accepted.

In South Africa, the Government recently ran a campaign to “Join the Arm Struggle and stop raping our mothers, sisters, wives and children: Masturbate, Don’t Rape”. It may be, however, that masturbation is the last taboo. In 1995, the US Surgeon-General was fired after suggesting at a press conference that masturbation should be taught in schools. When the Clinton administration was asked for the official policy on the matter, a spokesman replied that any young people who required a practical lesson in masturbation would be below the IQ requirement to enter school. I spoke to many people while researching this article. None of them wished to be credited with “additional research”.

In 1921 Dr Ernest Jones wrote: “Modern Clinical psychology has definitely established that autoeroticism is a normal and quite universal phase of human development, and not, as used to be thought, an abnormal perversion of the sexual instinct”. “Self abuse” had previously been regarded as a disease. As late as the early Fifties a US Public Health Service pamphlet warned “self-abuse may seriously hinder a boy’s progress towards vigorous manhood”. It was thought to be the cause of many other health problems.

These attitudes can be traced back to the early 18th century, when a certain quack doctor published Onania, in order to persuade the reading public to purchase his remedies. He lists the following frightful consequences: hindered growth, ulcers, consumptions, loss of erection as if they had been castrated, impotence… and in women: relaxes and spoils the retentive faculty, occasions the Fluor Albus (literally white flux), an obnoxious as well as perplexing illness attending that sex, turns complexion pale, swarthy and hagged, hysterics, consumptions and barrenness – at length a total Ineptitude to the Act of Generation itself.

Some women, he goes so far as to claim, from the “Lustful and Excessive Abuse of themselves, have this Propension of the Clitoris, and are thus brought into a Resemblance of the Male Sex”. Early doctors were concerned that masturbation literally drained a man of his vital humour. By 1924 JFW Meagher concluded that “the somewhat popular lay idea that masturbation may cause imbecility, consumption, etc., is not only without foundation, but is ridiculous…to falsely tell a suggestible patient that he will surely die or go insane as a result of the habit does no real good”. So what cures were to be found for this vile disease?

The author of Onania recommended his Strengthening Tincture (10 shillings) to combat discharge, or his Prolifick Powder (12 shillings) to cure infertility and impotence. Between 1856 and 1919 the U.S. Patent Office granted patents for forty-nine anti-masturbation devices. Thirty-five were for horses and fourteen for humans. The human devices, made for boys, consisted of sharp points turned inward to jab the penis should he get an erection during the night. A possible solution was marriage. Even Sheikh Ar-Tameeny agrees here. “Hasten towards marriage, the door to all goodness, success and richness”. It was not until the 1880s, with the advent of electricity, that doctors and midwives found help in the form of the vibrator. This was an improvement on the dildo, which had been known in ancient times: LYSISTRATA: … Since the day the Milesians betrayed us, I have never once seen an eight-inch gadget even, to be a leathern consolation to us poor widows…” (Aristophanes, ’Lysistrata’ 410 BC). Early models were developed in the 1880s.

By 1906, the appliance looked rather like a hairdryer, and came with an impressive array of attachments. Between 1900-1920, vibrators were marketed in American periodicals such as Home Needlework Journal, Women’s Home Companion and Modern Priscilla. Slogans included “all the pleasures of youth…will throb within you”, “Such Delightful Companions”, “Aids That Every Woman Appreciates”, and aimed at the male consumer “A Gift That Will Keep Her Young and Pretty”. Sadly once these devices began to appear in certain films, they were taken off the market. Men have appreciated other aids in this field. In the 4th century BC, Praxiteles unveiled the Knidian Aphrodite – the first naked female statue.

Pliny records that her derrière bore the stains of her appreciative male audience’s lust. Apple pie was not the first edible aid either. He had invented a new stunt, so he put it. “You take an apple and you bore out the core. Then you put some cold cream on the inside so as it doesn’t melt too fast. Try it some time. It’ll drive you crazy at first. Anyway it’s cheap and you don’t have to waste much time”. This is Philip Roth’s rendition : “Oh, shove it in me, Big Boy’, cried the cored apple that I banged silly on that picnic. ‘Big Boy, Big Boy, oh give me all you’ve got,’ cried the empty milk bottle that I kept hidden in our storage bin in the basement, to drive wild after school with my vaselined upright”.

While Truman Capote was right when he said the nice thing about masturbation is “you don’t have to dress up for it.” If you prefer staying in to getting dressed up and going out, you may be in danger of practising auto sexual masturbation, a perversion for which no interaction with a lover can provide a substitute. This is by contrast to deprivation masturbation, which occurs as a social necessity, because society does not allow the unlimited expression of eroticism.

I shall leave you with the words of Mark Twain. “To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and impotent it is a benefactor; they that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion”.

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There’s no accounting for taste. People’s personal preferences are so random that finding another person with the same opinions as yourself is impossible. Marmite is deliberately advertised with the line “you either love it or hate and the same could be said of several other things – David Gray, for example, or perhaps Basingtoke. Alcohol, however, is one thing that tends to unite people’s opinions. All across the world, from the furthest stretches of Siberia to the most isolated villages of rural Swaziland, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll be able to some kind of alcoholic beverage strip away all those annoying inhibitions and enable yourself to dance a twat, crack crappy jokes, and pass out in gutters. Hurrah. It is precisely this inhibition-destroying quality makes alcohol so popular at universities, where from the first day of Fresher’s Week to the final post-finals fling people are encouraged to drink too much and behave like fools. Some people, however, take this to extremes. They positively worship booze, creating entire clubs and societies with the sole aim of getting shit-faced as severely and regularly as humanly possible. These people are pioneers, ladies and gentlemen, boldly going where no liver would be advised to go. They are also insane. As you might imagine, Oxford is not without its fair share of these societies. To gain entrance to the Christchurch-based “Flowers and Fairies” society, for example, candidates are tied to an existing member of the society and have to match their counterpart drink for drink all the way through a particularly heavy session. A penalty system applies with punishable offences for going to the toilet, making a phone call, or drinking too slowly. The penalty, of course, is more booze. After this, any recruits who are still standing dash round the quad, discarding a garment at each corner, and the rest is history. There are other, supposedly more up-market societies in Oxford, relics of the Victorian age, likely to behave just as badly, only in slightly pricier venues. The Phoenix, made up of Brasenose undergrads, wear brown tailcoats and throw riotous garden parties in the summer, while also enjoying a termly dinner with a silver phoenix, known as “Our Old Friend” sitting in the 13th seat at the table, hinting at former satanic practices perhaps. There is the Bullingdon Club, for Oxford’s wealthiest boys, who can occasionally be seen staggering down Broad Street in their royal blue and yellow tailcoats tailored personally at Ede & Ravenscroft, after a heavy session at the King’s Arms. In fact, photos of past members in their finery can be seen in the back room of that very pub. Another university-wide society, the Stoics, again wearing old-fashioned tailcoats, initiates new members by forcing them to down a revolting concoction of liqueur from a silver horn in the graveyard of St. Mary’s, the University Church, in Radcliffe Square. Presumably candidates are assessed on their ability to hold the vile mixture in their gut. Less showy but similarly messy are the Assassins, one of Oxford’s more mysterious clubs, who along with the infamous Piers Gaveston society, hold annual parties at unknown destinations, fuelled by more than just alcohol. None of these groups are likely to be registered with the University Proctors, and often the college based societies are actually banned from the premises, as in the case of the St. John’s King Charles Club, which along with the Phoenix claims to be Oxford University’s oldest dining club. The “Bugger Ruggers” society at Teddy Hall dispenses with such elaborate selection procedures, choosing instead to elect three (female) recruits from each fresher year and take them on a twice-yearly bender round Oxford’s various drinking establishments, clad – there had to be a catch – in fancy dress. So the next time you see a bunch of pissed birds dressed up as cartoon characters rolling down the High Street, you know who to blame. As grueling initiations go, though, it would be hard to beat that imposed by the “Nondescripts” society at Christchurch. Prospective members are first taken to the Bear, where they are “encouraged” to drink a minimum of five pints in an hour. The next stop is Ma Belle, where they enjoy a huge meal accompanied by a compulsory two bottles of wine each. For some quiet post-dining rest, candidates are then taken to the Tom quad for the infamous “Quad Dash” in which they all race round the (not inconsiderable) circumference of the quad, performing twenty exercises (press-ups, sit-ups etc) and downing a can of beer at each corner. To cap off an enjoyable and relaxing evening, each person then necks a football boot’s worth of port. A Blues rower actually turned up for training the morning after carrying out this particularly savage ritual, which demonstrates admirable dedication, if not good sense. The Nondescripts – described as a “sports, dining and drinking society” – were actually banned for five years in the late 1980s after someone in authority took issue with the dubious sounding “Raindance” ritual, the details of which, I understand, “might not look good in print”. The Oxford-based societies, then, seem to be in rude health, with several particularly hideous traditions being enthusiastically upheld year after year by some extremely dedicated and single- minded devotees. But – although it pains me slightly to praise a Cambridge society over its Oxford counterparts – an honourable mention must go to the Wyverns society of Magdalene College, Cambridge. To gain entrance to this prestigious society, fresh-faced recruits are force-fed enough alcohol to get them in the mood and then sit down to a 20 course dinner. This sounds innocuous enough, until you see the menu: one course, for example, is a tin of dog food, another is a live goldfish, and the candidates are asked to provide another course by vomiting into a bucket and then eating the results. So there you have it – by all means join one of these clubs or societies. But you would be well advised to take out health insurance first. And should you wake up next to some particularly ugly stranger, with a suspicious taste of Pedigree Chum at the back of your throat, don’t say you haven’t been warned…
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PHILIP WOMACK left Oriel last summer. He is now doing a law conversion course in London. Who would have thought that lawyers could be such fun. “The EU was set up to prevent Europeans killing each other. Now they bore each other to death over interminable treaties,” is the first line of my first presentation. The mother of three dutifully writes down the sentence then bursts into antipodean guffaws. My tutor gets up to congratulate me and reveals that he is a scout for the toppest of top city firms and wants me to start tomorrow on a salary of £80,0000. I know that none of them are listening. I have not been listening to those that came before me to read out what they had copied out from the manual. In fact, I have to admit to finishing the crossword during a particularly dull speech from a girl in my group, which isn’t very group-bondy at all, which is what this rather silly exercise has been trying to achieve. The exercise being: read pp 1-2 of your manuals and do a presentation on them. Not difficult, you would have thought. But we have to do this IN A GROUP. So we can get all bondy and exchange intimate childhood memories and talk about that funny time when you were drunk and did that funny thing with the trolley and gosh didn’t you laugh when the policeman told you off for being slightly too loud outside an old people’s home. My group of four bonded like this: “Which paragraph do you want to do?” “The first one.” “OK.” “See you tomorrow.” If they want us to bond they must give us drink, damn them. Anyway, the result is we all leave the tute despondent, and no one has even noticed that I made lots of very funny jokes about Latvians not being able to join the EU because of hygiene reasons. “Let’s go to Starbucks,” says someone. “Huh,” say I. “There’s a perfectly decent pub down the road.” We troop down in that way that freshers do, where you’re trying to sort out who you actually want to be friends with without leaving out the boring ones at the back. Two drinks later the silly story competition starts. People did notice my joke about the Irish blocking treaties because they couldn’t remember having signed them because they were drunk, and we are bonding. I take it back. Lawyers are fun.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

Edinburgh Festival Review Very few other cities outside London can claim, as Oxford can, to have had eleven shows at Edinburgh this year. But more impressive than the actual number was the incredible diversity and novelty of the shows – only three of the productions worked from a bought script. The remainder included a literary adaptation, a devised fairy tale for children, a comedy sketch show and three completely new plays. The standard of production and acting was as varied as the pieces themselves. Lolita at C venues, featuring Katherine Flaherty in a poignant portrayal of the title role, was undoubtedly the most commercial offering. Flaherty managed to look no older than twelve and successfully captured the gentleness that is Lolita. The production’s fatal flaw was that the protagonist paedophile Humbert (Thom Glover) was no longer the monstrously middle-aged corrupter, with whom we unwillingly empathise, but a boy whose talent for acting could not negate the fact that he is merely nineteen, and looked it. By omitting huge chunks of the book we were relunctantly subjected to The Reduced Lolita, which collapsed spectacularly under the last few scenes of intense emotional crisis. Suddenly the audience was left watching a bunch of students performing a cheap copy of a masterpiece. In contrast James Copp, Hannah Madsen and their cast produced a very sweet version of the fairytale, The White Slipper. A hugely fun and imaginative show, it clearly appealed as much to kids as to their parents. Unfortunately such generosity cannot be extended to The Fine Art of Falling to Pieces, a thoroughly affected and formless piece of theatre. The semi-autobiographical script about dull student selfobsession totally shot itself in the foot by committing the very crime it set out to examine. And yet there remains some hope for student new writing. The Problem with the Seventh Year at the Underbelly was by far the best of the 30-odd shows I saw at this year’s Fringe. The writer, Nicholas Pierpan, tells the story of a boxer also training to be a medical student. Themes of sensitive but violent masculinity prevail, mixed with a raw edge reminiscent of Scorcese. Watch out for Pierpan, he promises great things. Suffering from serious obscurity is the Oxford Revue, who have spent the last year in the hands of the bizarre James Harris. The Edinburgh show was no funnier than the Oxford Playhouse production in May, where members of the audience were seen sneaking out every time the lights dimmed. Difficult ideas were poorly executed by a troupe of unfunny performers. This year’s Revue have now failed at four different venues, and nobody is laughing. We are in dire need of a new bunch to stop the damage being done to the Revue’s long-earned reputation. Broadway tastes were also catered for. A Chorus Line had to contend with some inferior acting and dodgy ensemble singing, but did succeed in producing an enjoyable show. Both Sarah Rajaswaran and Kari Moffatt are two to follow – their voices both divine. Frankly, Kept, was a test of endurance. A ridiculous set and shaky cast prevented this strange production from being anything but a disaster. Bouncers, which did well in Oxford earlier this year was funny, but by no means outstanding. And finally, Attempts on Her Life at the Underbelly was a superb piece by a group consisting mainly of recent Oxford graduates. It was an extraordinarily fresh, talented and visceral performance tackling issues of psychosis that represented a pinnacle to which all student drama should aspire.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

Lolita Tuesday – Saturday OFS After a turbulent run at this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe, Aidan Elliott will attempt to reincarnate his fiery stage adaptation of Nabokov’s novel in the Old Fire Station. Many of the Edinburgh cast are replaced for the Oxford shows, including Thom Glover as Lolita’s older man, Humbert. Significantly, however, Katherine Flaherty remains in the title role. Her performance alone justifies this rerun. From the moment she minces on to the stage, she grabs the audience’s attention with a gentle, playful caress. She is perfectly cast; slim, tiny, but most of all, child-like. Her mannerisms are painstakingly observed, sometimes so realistic that she demands attention to an embarrassing degree. Yet the dynamic between her and Humbert can be somewhat lacking; their relationship at times too crude, too comical to seem genuine. Nevertheless, the script based on Nabokov’s 1961 screenplay is measured and elusive. Despite the notoriety of the plot, Elliott still manages to make the consummation of Lolita and Humbert’s love a surprise. The coupling scene is treated with subtle poise; the darkened stage dulls the jarring impropriety of the nymphet astride the middleaged man, lending it a sensitivity that was missing in other scenes. Whilst the loss of Glover can be overcome, it will be a shame not to see again Basher Savage as the enigmatically devious Quilty. His difficult monologues were brilliantly handled; his timing of the unspoken replies eked out the sense from the silence. The Edinburgh critics applauded Elliott’s adherence to Nabokov’s narrative technique, placing the audience under the auspices of Humbert’s psychologist. Yet as the play’s sordid reality is unravelled, the production begins to lose its credo; Humbert’s mind is obviously deranged, but so is earlier the balance in the script. Once the fall has begun, the lasciviousness of Humbert and Quilty is too graphic. Elliot is wrong to find it necessary to follow Kubrick’s cinematics here; intimation would have been more effective than the brightly lit full frontal orgy. But despite its shortcomings and inalienable tendency to shock, this production is still an amiable vehicle for the voracious talent of Flaherty in the title role.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

Kiss of the Spiderwoman; OFS, 7th Week Another term, another eight weeks of student drama taking over the theatres of Oxford with productions ranging through the compelling, the innovative, and the embarrassing. Perhaps something to do with the weather, Michaelmas Term at the OFS is characterised by dark and depressing plays – from the Kiss of the Spiderwoman (7th Week), dealing with sex and revolution in Argentina, to Agnes of God (4th Week), in which a nun is found unconscious with her child killed. The Burton Taylor’s season is much more mixed, the highlight being this year’s Cuppers festival, wisely pushed back to 7th Week. Whether the extra two weeks rehearsal time will improve the quality of the freshers’ first foray into Oxford Drama remains to be seen, but there will certainly be some memorably bad performances that are unmissible. At the other end of the spectrum many veteran Oxford thesps are on stage again. On this front, the Playhouse’s student slots always deliver. This term, the production of David Greig’s Europeis set to be no exception, directed by ex-OUDS President Ilan Goodman. The play is a gripping study of the two-edged sword of globalisation and modernisation, which should impress and provoke thought. In total contrast, the comedy musical Return to the Forbidden Planet is the other student Playhouse production. One half of the current OUDS presidential team, Chip Horne, appears in Ibsen’s Ghosts (OFS, 5th Week) amongst a talented cast and crew, Another pyschological mouthful is served up a week later. James McInnes returns to Oxford to direct Equus (OFS, 6th Week), having completed a run of One in the Street, the Other in the Bed at the Greenwich Playhouse, as producer/assistant director. Away from the main venues, the Keble O’Reilly Theatre stages The Night Before Christmas in 4th Week. The show brings back the team behind Not the Oxford Revue, hopefully with another welcome anecdote to desperately awful student “comedy”. Following their production of The Zoo Story last term, St. Peter’s drama society migrate to the Wadham Moser Theatre to stage The Rising Generation(4th Week). Experimental drama at Oxford can be of mixed quality, but either way it promises to entertain. The Moser also hosts one musical, Pippin by Steven Schwartz. Home-grown writing talent is well represented this term, with two pieces of new-writing being staged; Alex Pappas’ Memory Play (BT, 6th Week) and Shakespeare’s Philoctetes, by Elizabeth Belcher, in which Sophocles’ tragedy meets The Tempest. It opens the BT’s Michaelmas season in 2nd Week We can’t wait to review it…ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003 

What five ingredients do you think every student should have in their kitchen cupboard? Salt, olive oil, lemons, a herb box with thyme, rosemary, basil, sage, mint and oregano, and last, but not least, garlic. When was the last time someone cooked for you and was it any good? Gordon Ramsay and it was great. I had white bean soup and loads of truffle dishes. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever eaten and where? Cod semen and sushimi of squid in Japan. What are your favourite vices? Rude and dirty jokes and swearing. If you weren’t a chef, what would you be doing? Definitely something with my hands; maybe I’d be a carpenter. What benefits do you think fame has brought you? The ability to do good things in the world. I’ve been able to set up Fifteen and work with kids, and next year I’m hitting school canteens in deprived wanker areas and showing them to improve their food. It should be a great project. Fame obviously means you can afford to set things up and live the dream, but it’s not as important as you imagine. Why do you think the students at Fifteenhave thrived under your guidance when they clearly struggled in formal education? A lot of love, not in a cheesy way, but in a supportive, fun atmosphere. Without exception I don’t want my students to be anything other than better then me and I believe with guidance and hard work they will be. Getting into television so early on in my life has meant that I can’t do a lot of things, like pack a bag and go travelling, but through them I can relive the excitement as they fulfil their dreams. I love it. Where do you see the charity in ten years time? The bigger picture is really exciting. Hopefully there will be restaurants in three different countries: London, New York and Melbourne. By then 3000 people will have gone through the course and have become qualified chefs. But most importantly, they will be mature chefs cooking in their own kitchens and as Fifteen is nonprofit I hope to be able to give them money towards setting up places of their own. And lastly, Jamie Oliver never leaves the house without… My credit card, mobile phone and leather man.ARCHIVE: 0th Week MT2003