Friday 8th May 2026
Blog Page 288

A Night Under the Stars: Reviewing Enclosure

Teagan Riches
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A Night Under the Stars: Reviewing Enclosure

The programme for Mostly Moss Productions’ Enclosure reads: “In this time of crisis hold each other closer. In community with each other, and with the more-than-human, with love: resist”. Not only was this message conveyed in the brilliant original writing of Jamie Walker and the story that unfolded before the audience’s eyes; It was lived every evening. People joined and walked together, shared blankets, drank cups of tea and sat together in the common. That was what was so unique about Enclosure, you weren’t just watching the action, you became a part of it. 

It is unusual to see a performance happening outdoors in October, yet charming advice to “follow the fairylights” by members of the crew led the audience into Hogacre Common Eco Park. This site-specific staging  effectively announced the production’s message before it even began. A public access site attesting to the “wilderness ever present and accessible to everyone”, whilst an outdoor setting vulnerable to weather changes served as a reminder of the future of the climate and the ever-threatening potential for extreme weather events. Their message emphasises that we have to face the future together, helping one another out, just as the audience were that night. From beginning to end, in setting and in performance, Enclosure was a truly thought-provoking piece, leaving you questioning your relationships with the natural world as well as one another. 

The play opened with the  weekly conservation volunteers, Jules (Lindsey March), Tom (John Gaughan), Ed (Finn Carter), and Debbie (Pareena Verma), sitting together, eating cake Debbie had made and discussing the work they had been doing managing the scrub of the common. We find out that wild boar have returned to the common, meaning the volunteers will no longer gather, as a scientist from Holland comes to oversee the process of rewilding. The story follows Ed, the biology student new to the group, as he learns about the common and the conservation work of both Tom and Ingrid, the scientist, who take opposing views on who owns the land and what should be done with it. 

Gaughan gave a captivating performance as Tom, with high emotion and intensity evident as he spoke about his relationship with the common and his pain at seeing it fenced off and blocked to ordinary people in favour of the animals. Defending his stance against the rewilding to his friend Harry (Aryman Gupta), he passionately shouts that “They don’t care!”, forcing us to question our relationships with animals and how we perceive their capacity to think and feel. 

In a captivating monologue, Tom takes us through the history of the common, from open ground where wild animals roamed, to a shared place for ordinary people, to the Forest laws that meant that the rich took ownership of the land. It outlined the complex nature of land ownership and privatisation, and provoked questions of why we humans often feel like we own such land when we in fact share it with so many other organisms. Angry, impassioned dialogue was occasionally interspersed by mutter of “it’s freezing”, sending laughter through the crowd, all of whom trying to keep warm on a bitter Autumn evening. 

Cass Baumberg and Mary-Jane Woodward played a dynamic mother-daughter duo as Ingrid (Baumberg), the scientist from Holland, in charge of overseeing the rewilding of the common, and her daughter Anna (Woodward). Baumberg gave an excellent performance, bursting with realistic enthusiasm as she taught Ed about the rewilding project. Her performance captured the essence of the play and the feeling that we were not just watching actors, but everyday lives – real people with real care, passion and curiosity for the topics they explored together, which is a credit to the actors’ commitment. Woodward conveyed beautifully (and through few words) the wonder and innocence of a child interacting with the details of the natural world. Movement and playful exploration of the space brought scenes to life, especially a musical interlude during which  ‘animals’ explored the common space, before giving branches to members of the audience – a statement of unity and sharing. 

The climax of the piece was the moment that Tom stole the key to the fence from Ed, and broke into the common to kill the wild boar, holding Anna hostage with him. The tension left you on the edge of your seat as Ingrid emotionally tried to explain to Tom the point of rewilding, and that the space would open once again, and this time they’d be doing the conservation work “with them”, referring to the wild animals. Mid-performance, posts and strings were arranged  around the audience, literally closing us in, heightening the intensity of the final moments as they stood trapped either side of a fence, and the audience sat enclosed where we sat. 

However, despite the undeniable merits of such a unique setting, it did leave me with questions surrounding accessibility. The route to the common meant navigating poorly lit paths, a raised footbridge with access by stairs only and then the uneven ground of the common. 

Located next to train tracks, frequent background noise made some of the dialogue difficult to hear, whilst the biting cold started to feel uncomfortable as time went on. Mostly Moss Productions did their best to combat people walking alone in the dark, organising a walking group from the centre of Oxford to the common as well as having a crew member or two along the route to ensure people could find their way. However, one student, who travelled alone, said to Cherwell, “I couldn’t shake the feeling that between the unlit country roads, terrifying footbridge and lack of signposting the venue was at best difficult to get to, and at worst frightening”. It would seem such a shame for people to not be able to access or be distracted by the challenges of the setting when the piece itself raises so many important questions and holds so many messages about community. 

Most Moss Productions’ Enclosure gave a strong and thought-provoking message about conservation, with storytelling eloquently interwoven with fascinating biological and historical facts such as the forest laws and processes linked to rewilding. Under the surface, dialogue about the common seemed to hold a broader social message with lines such as “they used to be a little more fluid and open… a great deal depends on it” together with sighs of “not much difference between us and the common”, seemingly emphasising the need for increased tolerance and togetherness in society, open minds, flexibility of ideas, community spirit. Whilst drawing our attention to important environmental issues at this time of climate crisis, Enclosure also painted a detailed picture of the challenges we as a society face and how we should face them. The answer: together.  

Delightful, witty and well-rendered: ‘Blithe Spirit’ in review

Maeve Hagerty
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Delightful, witty and well-rendered: ‘Blithe Spirit’ in review

In something of a swan song for Oxford’s A2 Productions, on the 9-12th November, they took to the Keble O’Reilly Theatre for their production of Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit. Cherwell’s previous interview with director Alex Foster and Alfred Dry (Madame Arcati)  raised expectations for A2’s creative reimagining of the 1941 play by Noël Coward, and the performances did not disappoint. 

In this queer retelling of the original story, Charles Condomine (Michael Freeman) and his wife Ruth Condomine (Siân Lawrence) invite some of their friends and a bizarre spiritual medium called Madame Arcati to their home to conduct a séance. However, in A2’s version, Madame Arcati is a drag queen and when the séance proves effective, it is Charles’ dead first husband Evelyn Condomine (Daniel McNamee) who comes back to haunt the married couple. 

The script lends itself well to this queer reframing, and overall the show was a large success. Though the first few minutes were a little rough,  with a few lines delivered too early and the Condomine duo almost over-eager to push the conversation along,  the actors’ found their footing and the rest of the performance was a delightful, witty, and well-rendered retelling.

Especially notable was Daniel McNamee’s performance as Evelyn, and Alfred Dry, in his Oxford-famous drag persona Miss Take, as Madame Arcati. Embracing the overdone, Dry successfully created the comedic atmosphere so essential to the otherwise awkward séance scenes and improvised gracefully in the face of accidents and errors. Madame Arcati’s hair and makeup were also stunning, artistry which can be credited to Dry / Miss Take as their own makeup artist.

McNamee tastefully played with the feminine tropes designed for the original ‘Elvira’, and used them to explore the queerness of Evelyn without falling into any tired cliches, and the result was something neither derivative nor superficial, which actually added to the humour and intrigue of the production.

As Foster told Cherwell in his interview “what’s quite funny is that making it more pronouncedly queer has meant that the jokes are just dirtier and sexier and funnier,” and while this is very true, it is also true that this humor is just as much a testament to the actors’ as it is to the adaptation of the script. Lawrence plays the outraged wife with apparent ease and Freeman is the perfect foil against which the craziness of the other characters’ shines out while still adeptly representing Charles’ character.

 The show’s technical elements were also very successful. The costuming by Mia Beechey reflected the characters well and elevated them to a higher level of believability, creating relatively timeless styles that still suggested the wealth and stature of the Condomines and the eccentricity of Madame Arcati. The set design by Jigyasa Anand and Teagan Riches was also effective, creating different spaces of interaction onstage, although it did seem slightly disjointed, as though none of the set pieces ought to exist in the same living room. Some of them, especially the sofa, did not do the elitist nature of the Condomines justice, while the singularly unstable nature of the table made the séance scenes constantly feel one step away from scenic disaster. However, the space enabled the often-emphatic physical performance of Madame Arcati and the rest, creating a level of dynamism that aided the storytelling. 

A2 productions’ performance of Blithe Spirit was everything you could hope from student theatre: invigorating and humorous, but also sharp and poignant at times. It was the perfect form of middle-term escapism and did the original play and its playwright justice, as well as celebrating a new generation of queer culture and creativity. 

Image Credit: A2 productions

‘Swinging the Lens’: In conversation with Adjoa Andoh

Teagan Riches
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‘Swinging the Lens’: In conversation with Adjoa Andoh

Adjoa Andoh, a ground-breaking actor and director, known most recently for her role as Lady Danbury on Netflix show Bridgerton is the 2022 – 2023 Cameron Mackintosh Professor of Contemporary Theatre at St Catherine’s college. She will be holding a series of ‘in conversations’ and workshops addressing key issues of diversity and inclusion while making work at Oxford, in her time as Professor.

‘Swinging the Lens’, the name of her production company, encapsulates all that she is aiming to do.

If we think of a lens as our perspective on the world, she’s asking whose stories are getting told, and acting to change that, so that new stories, new perspectives, new lenses on reality are given the space to be heard too.

I sat down with Adjoa following her second workshop and we talked about her aims, belonging, role models and I reflected on the transformative impact her work had had on me in such a small space of time.

We started with a moment in her inaugural lecture where she spoke about ‘class, race and poverty’ still being key determinants of opportunity in our society and the stories that are told of ‘people like them’. I resonated with what she said. When I took my seat at the beginning of her first workshop, I was at one of my lowest points. In the weeks leading up to the workshops I had had someone turn to me in a tutorial and ask, ‘what would a working-class person like you know about that?’; and sat in my university kitchen, someone told me that ‘people like you should be made to wear a special commonest of the common gown’. Just two examples of the multiple explicit and implicit moments built up over my two years here that told me, loud and clear, that I didn’t belong.

It felt like my 17-year-old self-had been proven right. I laughed when it was suggested I applied to Oxford, I looked at my head of sixth form and said, ‘a place like that doesn’t want people like me’, I hoped I would be wrong.

In a matter of minutes Adjoa changed all of that. She stood in front of us all and told us that we were welcome, we belonged and that our stories, perspectives, and ideas were all as valuable as each other’s. In the adverts for her workshops, it says she’s particularly interested in meeting students from ethnic minorities, low socioeconomic backgrounds, those with disabilities and those identifying as LGBTQ+; groups often marginalised or erased from the narrative, whose stories often aren’t told and if they are, not by the people who live them. For too many of these students, myself included, they feel excluded from many places, and access often comes as an afterthought. I’ve always felt a sense of frustration when people told me not to worry, ‘there’ll be people like you there’. Representation matters but even statements like these have an air of exclusivity, that you weren’t wanted or didn’t belong in the main, you had to stick to a little side group.

For Adjoa, she says, “I think we have to re-educate ourselves because I think there is a lot of pressure for people to fit into their particular box and not stray from it.”

I ask her why she is here doing the work she is doing. “I’m here for all of us who need space made for us.” She asks, who has the right to tell us we should be excluded from the spaces we feel excluded from, if we have the skills or curiosity to want to be in them? In her state of ‘outrage and childish it’s not fair’ she says she’s simply interested in being fair. Not “more superior or more entitled or more exclusive, I’m saying let’s be fair.”

As for the phrase ‘people like them,’ she sees it as a classic way of othering and disempowering and is interested in the opposite because she has been ‘people like them’. “Our existence is miraculous, and this othering is a waste of growth, a waste of joy” and any structure where this is the narrative, she will push back against. Pushing back is exactly what she is doing, by opening up the conversations but also by setting the example, creating an empowering, collective, creative space where everyone from all different backgrounds is welcome and is made to feel like they are heard and belong. Highlighted is what we have in common, and we celebrate that. We also learn, respect and value the stories and perspectives we share with each other that highlight our differences. We learn about the people who came before us and the importance of knowing that we have been part of the story before this point.

She tells us stories of the unsung, stories most of us have never heard before, but in knowing about them Adjoa says; “we can go forward standing on the shoulders of those who already came before us”. The examples she gives in her lecture are black footballers and the contributions they have made to British football; including Jack Leslie the first black player to be called up for England in 1925. She asks if we knew this story, maybe less fuss would be made about black footballers now, and maybe less hate would have been received by our young black penalty takers at the 2021 Euros?

In her short time here, she has created an empowering space for us all to share. I’d given up hope on ever feeling like I belonged in Oxford up until that point. However, now I had been given the space to belong, my question, now in my own state of outrage, why can’t this be mirrored elsewhere?

I ask her how we can apply what is created in that room to wider life?

“If we can use days like today, of being together, as a touchstone, to constantly remind yourself, when the noise that says you shouldn’t be here, you’re not valid, not worthy, is loud… remember the people I told you about, those unsung people whose achievements we don’t know about and just hold on to them.

“Remind yourself when you need it and re-encourage yourself that you belong.

“Hold your place, hold your nerve, hold your line because what you are doing is holding a space for joy for yourself. For the celebration of yourself.”

That joy is infectious and uplifting. What she tells me rings true. From that first workshop onwards, I have held on to that feeling and felt empowered, not only to stay and find that joy for myself, but also to share it – create that space for others as Adjoa has for us. Her work is all about stories, and here I want to tell this story of hope and joy, so it too can be used as a foundation for future work to be built upon.  We are already here with a space of mutual belonging in Oxford, we are part of the story already, hopefully in knowing that we can move forward standing on the shoulders of Adjoa and the work she has done.

“There are terrific stories of joy and beauty, togetherness, cooperation and elevation but they’re not the stories that lead.”

Creating such a welcoming space started with the smallest of gestures, disguised as a simple memory game, we started the session by going around every person, having them say their name, the group repeating it back to them and welcoming them. This is something that could have been rushed but instead, Adjoa stopped and made sure every single person’s name was being pronounced correctly. I asked her why it was important to her to start the session this way, “Names are something we carry with us everywhere and people bothering to pronounce your name correctly means they’re bothered to spend enough time with you to pay attention to the fact that it is important. That you are important. That honouring the name you carry is important.”

You could hear in the voices of many in attendance this was something people seldom paid attention to, after repeating their name once or twice some were ready to give in, but Adjoa encouraged them. She talks about how people often feel embarrassed about needing to ask you to repeat your name or not getting the pronunciation right the first time but that the point is, “that intention, the intention to pay attention.”

It was worth it, such a small gesture yet I watched as people’s faces lit up as they heard a room of people pay attention, make the effort and pronounce their name correctly. Names carry so much meaning about our identity, but for so many, it is something that goes overlooked. When our names are said incorrectly many of us laugh, for me often going ‘I don’t know who this Teigen person is’, but such a small thing can make us feel so unseen. For Adjoa, she says “I’m much happier to go ‘say your name three times and everyone says it back’, let’s honour and respect that person because we all deserve that. It’s really a tiny thing.”

Adjoa is interested in and gives us the space to explore and express the complexity and multiplicity of stories that make us who we are. For all of us, assumptions are made by the people around us, of the story that makes us, based solely on the way we look, the colour of our skin, and our accent. Each of us is beautifully complex and it’s when we take the time to ask and listen and tell the stories that aren’t given the platform to be told that we are enriched by the full force of life. We are all, she says “vibrating with living history”. At her lecture, a White English Victorian formal family portrait is projected behind her. Adjoa looks at the faces in the picture and smiles before telling us the portrait is of part of her family and talks us through her family tree. Whilst she laughs that nobody needed to see that, she included it because for her “when I look at my great grandfather Joseph Pickering and my nana Jessie and my great grandmother Jessie that is not what people would expect to be part of my family if they look at me.

People’s lives are interestingly complex, we need to think about that complexity.”

It is also, as Adjoa tells me, where we find our common ground with each other and that stories need to be told so we can “understand what’s really going on in the world and the ways we engage with each other”. At the workshop we play the game ‘anyone who’ where people run across the circle if something said applies to them such as ‘anyone who is wearing black shoes’. It highlights what we have in common, potentially unexpected commonalities. What we find in common, who we resonate with, and who our role models are, also interests her. “It’s about essence and spirit sometimes”, you don’t necessarily have to look like someone or sound like someone for you to resonate with them, to share something in common with them. She tells me “When I play Richard III, I do so because, as a little mixed-race girl from the Cotswolds in the 1960s I resonated with him, his sense of not being fully embraced. What had my life to do with Richard III? Nothing and everything. I love the freedom of that, let me get my influences where I get my influences.”

We are students from all different backgrounds, different ethnicities, sexualities, genders, social class backgrounds, and ages, we are all studying a range of subjects but in those workshops, we are a collective. It doesn’t matter if you have any experience in theatre, it’s all about stories, which are told, which aren’t, who’s telling them and why. We explore texts by Lolita Chakrabarti, Kobina Sekyi, Biyi Bandele and Shakespeare. We share our perspectives and ‘lenses’ through our own writing. Most important of all we are together in a collective joy, a celebration of ourselves and each other, one in which I hope we can expand to the rest of the university and beyond.

For anyone reading this, who is being made to feel like they don’t belong or is being made to feel ashamed of parts of their identity – the final question I asked Adjoa was her advice to you and why you should come to the next workshop.

“If people feel like they are being excluded or marginalised or made to feel less than they should, come to the workshop for encouragement that they are fabulous and they are welcome and they are wanted and actually the ‘less than’ appellation should be applied to the people who are making them feel that way.

You are at Oxford University by dint of your hard work, your application, your curiosity and the skills that you possess, and no one has the right to take that away from you. Any who attempts to, is unworthy and should not be paid attention to.

It is your right, it is your duty and make it your joy, to remain and flourish because this is an extraordinary institution, and it has many benefits, and you should not be shoved sideways away from those benefits because somebody else is confused by your presence.”

“This is your time, your opportunity – How wonderful you are.”

Image credit: St Catherine’s College

Striking the balance at university

Sofia Della Sala
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Striking the balance at university

As you get stuck into university, whether it be at undergrad or postgrad level, there will be hundreds of opportunities and events thrown at you. From society events, speakers that visit the university, career networking afternoons and then just your friends organising a weekend pub trip. All in all, you can pack your days with back-to-back plans or keep them empty.

But striking the balance is something I find incredibly difficult. Will I miss a great speaker? Will I not be in the loop? I sometimes find myself racing home to try to nap or just relax a bit in preparation for an evening event that I really should just skip. I sometimes struggle to say no.

When my friends meet up, even if I am tired or feel like I need a day at home, I will convince myself that it will be fine when I get there because I will be with everyone and having fun – I will forget that I am in dire need of some TLC.

I sometimes envy those who can just say: “Sorry, not tonight”, without feeling the need to give a detailed explanation about how they are so sorry but they can’t come for reasons x, y and z. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not someone who never turns down plans or puts themselves first. I love my sleep as much as the next person and even when I have plans, I try my best to not allow my sleep to get compromised. I have also backed out of plans— just maybe not as often as I should.

But it can be difficult when you want to do all these things. I am not packing my calendar full of events that I dread or dislike. I wish I could be in two places at once, but as fun as this term has been, I am also aware that it has been packed that little bit too full. I need to prioritise certain events and know to turn down others, even if I feel like I don’t need a night off at that moment in time, my future self will thank me for it.

I get easily swept up in things that sound exciting. When someone tells me they are a trapeze artist, my immediate thought is: “That is so cool, maybe I can try that”. Really there is no need for me to fling myself from ropes for the hell of it. As a fun activity to try out sure (it does sound amazing), but not another regular appointment on my weekly schedule. Just because someone else does it, or someone I know raves about something, it doesn’t mean I have to move mountains to include it in my day. I need to just acknowledge that it does sound great but that what I actually need is my pyjamas, a blanket, and Legally Blonde.

Being busy and having lots to do it great, but only when you are actually able to enjoy those plans and not just trudge through them thinking about the moment you get to collapse onto your bed. In the new year I am going to try and follow my own advice of saying no – the world won’t implode and your friends won’t hate you. Have a night off, it’s ok.

Image Credit: Leeloo Thefirst via Pexels.

Time’s Up: Oxford Student Union’s latest climate justice demands

Olivia Boyle
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Time’s Up: Oxford Student Union’s latest climate justice demands

The Oxford University Student Union has renewed its push for climate action with its latest set of sustainability demands to the University. These aim to tackle widespread collegiate inaction in addressing the climate crisis and give governing bodies until March 2023 to act.

The SU is calling for each college to adopt a target of net zero carbon and biodiversity gain by 2035 at the latest, and appropriately reorganise governance to allow for sufficient time devoted to the project. They must also form sustainability committees with suitable student representation and be publicly transparent by publishing comprehensive strategies and full annual progress reports.

In the past, college level commitment to climate action has been limited. As it stands, Mansfield and Hertford have publicly committed to a 2030 net zero target, with St Edmund Hall releasing a sustainability strategy earlier this year. Divestment from fossil fuels is similarly underwhelming with only 6 colleges cooperating directly with the central university and out of the rest, a minute number (Balliol, Somerville, Trinity and St Anne’s) have committed perfunctorily to fossil fuel divestment.

Anna-Tina Jashapara, VP Charities and Community recognised the responsibility of the colleges “as institutions with considerable power and resources”. Some colleges, of course, are less equipped to initiate an immediate change but Oxford SU make it clear that the college contributions fund will continue to offer support. 

The SU’s demands highlight that even wealthy institutions such as Oxford University, which has a £5.06bn endowment, still have a long way to go before reaching carbon neutrality and fossil fuel divestment. Mirroring the stark apathy of the Global North and the richest, most powerful nations both attending and abstaining from COP-27, colleges have been largely inactive for three years despite the University’s commitment to fossil fuel divestment in 2020. 

Following the general theme of inaction, COP-27 ended on 18th November. Nevertheless, the SU’s actions herald a renewal of commitment to public, clear-cut change making. Meanwhile, the demands are fully supported by the Decarbonise Oxford campaign, Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, and Oxford Climate Society, inciting student-led involvement and action. At present, it is largely students who are holding their colleges accountable for climate action. CLOC, for example, is the student-founded points-based system that grades individual colleges’ climate action and provides clear evidence of university-wide inaction.

The Oxford SU demands that responsibility is taken publicly by everyone; there are no colleges, staff members, faculties, departments or students who are exempt from the impact of climate change. So these are the people who must take action for climate justice. Action Director at OCS, Esme McMillan, reminds us that now is the time to ensure “our planet is liveable for all present and future generations.”

Letting the “work do the talking” – Professor Samson Kambalu’s Fourth Plinth statue

Olivia Boyle
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One of Oxford’s own, Professor Samson Kambalu of Magdalen College, is the current laureate of Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth. As something that embodies the diversity of British identity, his statue, Antelope, is a direct challenge to Oxford’s own statues. It highlights that the university is as static as its statues, stuck in a bygone era of so-called colonial glory. Now, Antelope represents an opportunity to develop, expand, and enrich Oxford’s global identity.  Instead, it is doggedly silent on the topic, only acknowledging Kambalu in a brief website news update. This embodies a more deep-rooted apathy to confronting the most difficult conversations. The whole university should be proudly knowing of the nationally significant work of Samson Kambalu. Instead, I’ve spent more time explaining who he is over the last few weeks than having vital discussions on what is more important: a fauxlanthropic Gormley with genitalia greeting the Broad Street masses or persistent challenges to the colonial past through building a lively, diverse array of sculptural identity.

Statues are complicated in Oxford. In 2020, debates were re-sparked by the Black Lives Matter protests that dominated High Street where Oriel’s Rhodes looms. Now, the conversation can celebrate Kambalu’s art but dialogue barely exists; are we still not at the point of replacing Rhodes with Kambalu’s socio-politically powerful figures?

When conversation occurs, it is bound by counter-productive left-right politics that stymies debate: The Times called Antelope a ‘disappointing history lesson’ whilst the Guardian calls it an ‘anticolonial hero statue’. Majestic and dauntless – unlike Rhodes’ bowed head – pan-Africanist John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley represent something that is far more educational and conversation-opening. The two papers’ diametrically opposing takes on the statue illustrate that we are still unable to celebrate diversity instead of idolising colonialists.

Kambalu has said that “Antelope on the Fourth Plinth was forever going to be a litmus test for how much I belong to British society as an African and a cosmopolitan. This commission fills me with excitement and joy.” This joy had been very, if briefly, present in Oxford; the Professor had an exhibition, New Liberia, in Modern Art Oxford where a maquette of Antelope was on display as well as in Magdalen’s Fractured Republic display.  For now though,, the trip to London must be made to see the statue. This raises questions of Kambalu’s relationship with Oxford – surely there should be a permanent version of Antelope in Oxford? I was interested to know how much dialogue the Professor had had with the university to scope what Antelope meant to an institution founded on colonial iconography. In an emailing discourse, Professor Kambalu made it clear that he must “let the work do the talking” and declined to disclose his level of communication with the university. Is Oxford still hooked on its “dodgy” history? Will there never be the “imperial showdown” (The Guardian review of Antelope) that Antelope calls for? 

We’re still waiting for university-wide discussion. In 2020, the Oxford Zimbabwe Arts Partnership proposed an anti-rhodes, anti-colonial statuesque celebration of diversity but the art project was swiftly shut down by the university. An OZAP Facebook post from June this year indicates that ‘Oxford & Rhodes: past, present & future project is still in progress’ but the university is still quiet.

On the whole, however, Antelope has been widely successful, provoking much healthy debate. Kambalu’s art invests in conversations on a better future but for now, Oxford remains stuck in its “dodgy” past.

Antelope is on display in Trafalgar Square until 2024 and a maquette of Antelope is on display in the Scottish Parliament.

Image: CC2:0//Stu Smith via Flickr.

Oxford’s Ebola vaccine recommended by WHO for use against Uganda outbreak

Jack Twyman
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Oxford’s Ebola vaccine recommended by WHO for use against Uganda outbreak

A new Ebola virus vaccine developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group is one of three vaccines recommended for a trial in Uganda to combat the ongoing outbreak of an Ebola variant that evades current vaccines.

Existing vaccines that effectively halt the more common Zaire strain of ebolavirus do not work with the Sudan strain behind Uganda’s outbreak. With support from researchers at the Jenner Institute, Professor of Vaccinology and Immunology at the Oxford Vaccine Group, Teresa Lambe OBE, has developed an experimental vaccine designed to generate an immune response against both the Zaire and Sudan strains of ebolavirus. The vaccine is due to arrive in Uganda this week.

According to Lambe, the outbreak in Uganda “highlights the ongoing and pressing need for rapid responses to prevent outbreaks escalating further”.

Since Uganda declared an Ebola disease outbreak caused by the Sudan ebolavirus on 22nd October, 163 infections and 77 deaths have been reported across nine regions. The urgency of this situation led the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health in Uganda to co-sponsor a randomised ring vaccination trial of vaccines designed for the Sudan strain. This method was previously successful in Zaire ebolavirus outbreaks in Guinea and Sierra Leone. 

The WHO asked the existing COVID-19 Vaccine Prioritisation Working Group to extend its COVID-19 remit to rapidly evaluate the suitability of candidate Ebola vaccines for inclusion in the planned trial in Uganda using similar considerations on safety, likely efficacy and logistic issues relating to availability and implementation.

Consequently, the WHO Vaccine Prioritisation Working Group recommended on 16th November that the Oxford biEBOV vaccine be included in a planned ring vaccination trial in Uganda. Two other vaccines from the Sabin Vaccine Institute USA and International Aids Vaccine Initiative were also recommended for inclusion.

Oxford’s ebola vaccine was developed using methods proven successful in the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Both share a common vector of the ChAdOx1 virus, a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that has been genetically modified so that it is impossible for it to replicate in humans. 

The Working Group noted that the Oxford vaccine’s use of the ChAdOx1 platform in the COVID-19 pandemic was tested in the field with over two billion doses. However, they ranked the Oxford vaccine last out of the three as there is limited clinical trial experience with the ChAdOx1 platform encoding an ebolavirus insert. 

Sandy Douglas, Associate Professor at the Jenner Institute and lead on manufacturing scaleup for the Oxford vaccine, was keen to highlight that “[o]ne of the key advantages of this [Oxford ebolavirus vaccine] is that it should be possible to produce it at [sic] very large scale”. He noted how the Serum Institute of India was able to use Oxford’s adenovirus manufacturing techniques to make more than one billion doses of the Oxford adenovirus-based COVID-19 vaccine.

Disease outbreaks are unpredictable, and according to Dr Charle Weller, head of infectious disease prevention at Wellcome, the WHO may use only one vaccine in the field to ensure enough data is collected to assess one candidate fully, or decide to use all three in case one fails. The vaccine trial is also dependent on good relations with the local community, but recent accounts from frontline workers have raised concerns about misinformation and local conspiracy theories that claim the Ebola outbreak is fake.

Forget the Blues – It’s time for Oranges!

Freya Buckley
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Forget the Blues – It’s time for Oranges!

I would like to preface this article with a note that this is in no way a means of making light of fifth week blues, but rather an attempt to put a positive spin on some tricky times.

Dear readers, last week I decided it was time to forget the fifth week blues and attempt something new instead – the sixth week oranges! By the time you are reading this, weeks five and six will have come and gone, but my methods of cheering myself up will still stand! As a busy term comes towards a close, I think we could all use some delightful self-care.

Yes, I have insufferably decided to Polly-Anna my way through sixth week in an attempt to offset the fifth week blues.

However, before we get to my teeth-ache inducing optimism let’s first have an actual consideration of the fifth week blues:

I had the revelation the other day that being sad makes me feel bad. Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘um duh, Freya (and good rhyme!)’. What I mean to say is that although being sad is obviously not a good feeling, it’s a feeling that I get angry at myself for feeling. It feels distracting, a waste of my time, quite frankly irritating. This term has had some sad moments for me that I will not divulge, and they have taught me the lesson that sometimes you just are sad, and that is okay. Let yourself be sad. Sit in the sadness, if only for five minutes, and realise that it is just an emotion, just a feeling. Don’t try and push through or ignore the sadness because it will inevitably creep up on you and suddenly you will be sat in bed sobbing at First Dates while your unwritten essay lurks, a haunting blue W at the bottom of your screen, and there will be mouldy coffee cups around you, and you’ll sob louder as you shake bourbon biscuit crumbs from your bra.

Of course no one wants to feel sad forever. So, here’s how to have the week six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven …. (you get the gist) oranges.

Step One: (and this one is really going to surprise you all!)

Have a boogie. It would seem silly, given my assertions last week, to not immediately suggest to you all that you have a dance this week. But I honestly do think there is nothing like having a dance for making you feel better. It’s such a reminder that, when you really think about it, life is so silly. Look, I have arms and legs and I can wiggle them in funny little positions to music! Silly, but brilliant. 

Step Two:

Buy a coffee, or a tea, or a hot chocolate, or make a really fancy drink at home and put it in an equally fancy mug. Take it to your desk and occasionally sip it while typing really furiously, even just typing random letters. Now don’t you feel sophisticated and on top of things? This is how people in work, in business, high-flyers (probably) feel.

Step Three:

Potato waffles. Potato waffles are, to quote an advert from the 80s, “waffely versatile”. They can be made in the toaster, the oven, you could probably fry them, I reckon you could even do that thing where you cook things in a dishwasher (I mean I wouldn’t recommend it). They’re good for breakfast, for a little afternoon snack, after a night out, with beans. Our freezer is full of them. 

Step Four: 

Realise how silly everything is at this uni. Like so, so silly. We have tutorials in small rooms with world-leading academics, we sit in libraries that are centuries old that have portraits on the walls of old beardy men who are probably significant, but I couldn’t actually tell you why. We wear gowns and do our exams while wearing school uniform even though we’re in our twenties. I genuinely think something that helped me through Prelims was looking at the beauty of the exam halls and around at all the people in gowns and white shirts. Although for a moment it made my imposter syndrome tell me that they were much cleverer than me, which prompted blatant fear, I suddenly realised… bloody hell! Look at all this! And they’re letting me just do it, write things that academics who wrote the theories on them will read, sit in this room – I might as well enjoy it then. And guess what – I did!

Step Five:

Look for a red kite and by look for a red kite I mean literally just look up. Oxford is full of red kites, the kite-tailed birds of prey. They are everywhere, they are huge and they are cool. I get excited every single time I see one. When everything feels a bit much, look up and see if you can spot a bird of prey flying over the Bod.

Step Six: (input from the public)

I have consulted the masses (my mates) and thus I would now like to offer you some thoughts from others, on how to get yourself through stressful times (Oxford)

  • Given my last column this one is pretty close to my heart: a good playlist. This is crucial as it helps you with step one of this list. If you are in the market for a good collection, you could always peruse my last article and its accompanying playlist…
  • Good snacks or a meal with friends, including eating lots of chocolate – food featured heavily, and for good reason. With Oxmas approaching I recommend you all run to Tesco and buy the lebkuchen (check spelling), which tastes of Christmas and happiness – leave some for me!
  • A walk around Port Meadow, or, for those of us further away, any park – in short, a walk. Endorphins, exercise, pretending you are a model, stomping in large boots, springing in light shoes, stroking animals (ponies, cats, cows, dogs: note, location dependent) – these are all things that you could do or gain from a walk that make it a beneficial step in being orange not blue. Momentary divulsion – orange vs blue is a colour wheel-based separation, orange is a happy colour!
  • Watching telly and having an early night. Log off from the gruelling world of academics and plug in to television.

These are just some of my and my friends’ tried and tested methods for little moments of happiness. Of course, you don’t need me, a random writer in a student newspaper, to explain doing fun activities to you. But through writing this I remembered what makes me happy, and then I did some of them, and it felt truly good. I realised essays can be hard, but they can also be fun, and they can also be difficult, but then I can have a dance afterwards. Life may be blue sometimes, but I’m going to look for bursts of orange, and I think you should too.

Image Credit: Rogério Martins via Pexels.

Matthew Dick wins Union Presidency as FULFIL slate sweeps officerships

Cherwell News
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Matthew Dick wins Union Presidency as FULFIL slate sweeps officerships

Matthew Dick of the FULFIL slate has been elected President of the Oxford Union for TT 2022, winning 481 first preferences to Daniel Dipper’s 425. Dick was the Secretary of the Union in Michaelmas 2022.

The three other officerships were won by the following candidates:

Librarian:  HANNAH EDWARDS (FULFIL) with 469 votes

Treasurer:  ROSIE JACOBS (FULFIL) with 459 votes

Secretary: TOM ELLIOT (FULFIL) with 461 votes

The results were a victory for the FULFIL slate, which was running against the IMAGINE slate.

Those elected to Standing Committee, in descending order, are: 

CONRAD FRØYLAND MOE  (IMAGINE)

LEWIS FISHER (FULFIL)

SEB WATKINS (FULFIL)

AMY GILBRIDE (FULFIL)

ANMOL KEJRIWAL (LIGHT)

NADIA BEKHTI (IMAGINE)

Those elected to Secretary’s Committee, in descending order, are:

Julia Maranhao-Wong, Leo Buckley, Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, Adi Raj, Finley Armstrong, Chloe Davis, Cindy Yu, Aliyyah Gbadamosi, Ibrahim Usmani

Uni staff say enough! Strikes hit Oxford for three days

Maggie Wilcox and Rebecca Powell
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Uni staff say enough! Strikes hit Oxford for three days

Oxford University staff will be joining 70,000 other University and College Union (UCU) members taking industrial action on the 24th, 25th and 30th November.  The national wave of strikes is in response to working conditions, insufficient pay to meet living standards and precarious employment.

All of these issues have been brought to the national forefront by the cost of living crisis, but in Oxford affordability has been a concern for many years. Employees of Oxford University, especially early career researchers and postgraduate students, have been feeling the pinch of trying to make a living in one of the UK’s most expensive cities. David Chivall, a lab manager in the School of Archeology and Vice President of the Oxford UCU branch, has been working in Oxford for seven years. During this time, he has had to move houses eight times due to the inaccessibility of housing prices for someone on an Oxford research salary. 

There is often a perception that the early stages in an academic or research career will be financially precarious as an aspiring professor undertakes years of study and entry-level positions. However, job and economic instability have become a fact of life for many researchers, even those with years of experience. Casualisation, or the shift to short term, fixed contract employment, is at the root of many of these problems facing university employees. According to an anonymous testimonial from a UCU report on precarious academic work in Oxford published in February 2022, there is a myth that “bright PhD students getting their foot on the career ladder” need to take casualised teaching contracts. In reality, many researchers continue to take such contracts for years and are never provided “secure and dignified contracts”. Furthermore, teaching contracts can take away from a young academic’s time to develop their own work and scholarship.

Even those that fully concentrate on their research are still overwhelmingly employed on fixed-term contracts. Dr. Hilary Wynne, a postdoctoral researcher in linguistics, has a full-time fixed contract position with the university and has experiences difficulties receiving her wages. In her first three months on contract, she wasn’t paid. In her new role with a higher paygrade, she has yet to see a change of her status on the university payroll. She is not “particularly optimistic” that she will see her agreed raise next payday. 

Despite these issues, Dr. Wynne enjoys working in Oxford and describes her experience as “enlightening, exciting, rewarding”. Since the signing of the Concordat for Researchers in 2008 and updated in 2019, things have improved for postdocs and fixed term researchers. However, Dr. Wynne and the UCU say that the university needs to do more to address the widespread use of insecure contracts and insufficient pay. Dr Wynne reiterates how it is difficult for researchers to “pay household bills and rent in Oxford, let alone ever dream of buying a house or starting a family.”

The University has taken steps to help researchers afford Oxford, particularly since inflation has increased. They have acknowledged  “the impact of the rising costs of living on the student community and recognise that it is a source of worry for many students and are continuing our efforts to ensure our financial support addresses this”. In this light, they have compiled information to help students and staff manage their finances. 

As well, in June 2022, the University gave staff a £1,000 “thank you” payment for their dedication throughout the pandemic and as an acknowledgement of the growing cost of living. The UCU welcomed this action, but urged the university to go farther and increase staff pay in a sector which has seen a 25% decline in pay relative to RPI since 2009. In the same time period, the higher education sector has seen its profits rise by 15%.

The three days of industrial action will commence with a rally on Broad Street and, throughout, non-college buildings will be picketed. For this period, academics, tutors, librarians and researchers employed by the university will also refuse to compensate for work lost due to strike action and cover for absent colleagues. Consequently, 2.5 million students nation-wide are expected to be adversely affected by the disruption. In Oxford, the university have announced that while they  understand staff concerns, they “also have a duty to ensure that our education and research activities continue as far as possible” and have put contingency plans in place. 

Prof Nikita Sud, a Professor of Politics and Development, stressed in a message to her students that she did “not want strike action to affect students”. She went on to emphasize how much she enjoyed teaching and most aspects of her job. However, she firmly believes in the UCU action “want[s] to make clear to management that [employee] labour is not dispensable and needs to be adequately compensated and recognised”.

If the university does not bring improved offers to the table that satisfy union demands, the UCU have proposed escalated action in the New Year alongside a potential marking and assessment boycott. Prof Sud emphasizes: “The onus is very much on university managements to negotiate with the University and College Union (UCU) to reach a resolution. The dispute won’t resolve itself, or disappear.”

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