Sunday 22nd February 2026
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John Radcliffe Hospital hosts new institute for trauma, emergency, and critical care

Angelina Wu
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John Radcliffe Hospital hosts new institute for trauma, emergency, and critical care

A new Kadoorie Institute of Trauma, Emergency and Critical Care has been established within the University of Oxford. Based at the John Radcliffe Hospital, the new institution formalises a long-term collaboration between the Oxford Trauma and Emergency Care at the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS) and the Critical Care Research Team at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences (NDCN).

The Kadoorie Institute’s close collaboration with its host, the John Radcliffe Hospital, is designed to enable research into clinical effectiveness. Matthew Costa, Professor of Orthopaedic Trauma Surgery at NDORMS and one of the Institute’s directors, told Cherwell that the department aims to streamline research into Emergency Departments, trauma operating theatres, and Intensive Care Units. The institute will analyse “these three acute care specialities together so that our research spans the whole patient pathway”.

Both research and education form the focus of the Kadoorie Institute. Professor Costa told Cherwell: “Our educational work aims to provide the ‘outputs’ from this research in a way that is easily accessible to healthcare professionals and patients, whether it be online materials or face-to-face teaching.”

The Kadoorie Charitable Foundation, the Institute’s namesake, has played a pivotal role in its financial support. Professor Costa told Cherwell: “The Kadoorie Charitable Foundation has been supporting acute case research and education in Oxford for 20 years… Without their support, the Institute would not have been possible. We hope to continue this incredible relationship for many years to come.” The Institute’s launch comes at a time of increasing strain for the NHS, particularly in the field of emergency medicine. Costa told Cherwell: “Acute care in the NHS is seldom out of the press. Research to improve the outcomes for patients who need urgent treatments is therefore a key priority for the NHS. With ever increasing pressure on NHS resources, there is also a need to make sure that all new treatments are cost-effective as well as better for patients’ recovery.”

Grammy-nominated musician appointed Christ Church Composer in Residence

Angelina Wu
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Grammy-nominated musician appointed Christ Church Composer in Residence

Christ Church has appointed American composer Nico Muhly as its first ever Composer in Residence. Based in New York, Muhly has been collaborating with Peter Holder, Director of Music of Christ Church Cathedral for several months. Muhly has previously been Composer in Residence at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge, and a collaborator with Magdalen College.

The role of a Composer in Residence within Christ Church’s community is still largely undefined. Reflecting on the unique position, Muhly told Cherwell: “There doesn’t exist a handy document from Henry VIII’s HR department saying what it is that I should get up to.” Muhly sees his role to be a provider of music, both in the form of a complete set of service music, and for festivals and holidays throughout the year. The first of these musical contributions, With Harte and Hande, a carol inspired by a 16th century mystery play, received a performance on 17th January in Christ Church Cathedral.

Muhly’s relationship to the cathedral’s choristers has greater definition. He plans on introducing contemporary music to the music traditions of choristers, bridging the gap between the varying practices. Muhly told Cherwell: “I think my ability to speak their language can be useful in showing them music which wouldn’t normally come across their desks or headphones.”

In honour of the College Cathedral Choir’s 500th year anniversary, Muhler plans to premiere a new cantata this summer. Christ Church has long been a source of inspiration for Muhly, who has been “listening to their recordings since the beginning of time”. Muhly told Cherwell: “The goal is to write something that relates to the greater ChCh community, but also something which will have – as the saying goes, legs – which is to say that other choirs will want to perform it.”

Muhly’s experience includes commissions by Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, the Tallis Scholars, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the BBC. He has also worked with artists including Sufijan Stevens, the National, and Paul Simon, and has scored screen productions such as The Reader, Kill Your Darlings, and Pachinko. 

Muhly was nominated for a Grammy in 2022 for his composition ‘Throughline’, performed by the San Francisco Symphony. 

Reflecting on his role with regards to current and future music undergraduates, Muhly said: “I find that it’s often useful to have a composer Just Around [sic] the place, in the same way it’s good to have the number of a reliable cobbler or seamstress or somebody who can reliably read hieroglyphs – we can do a lot more than you think.”

University raises concerns over proposed cuts to Oxfordshire fire service provision

Beatrix Arnold
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University raises concerns over proposed cuts to Oxfordshire fire service provision

The University of Oxford has joined others in expressing concerns over Oxford County Council’s proposed cuts to the Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service (OFRS). The proposals, which would see reductions in the number of fire stations, fire engines, and firefighter posts, follow a review of fire service resources and emergency response capabilities across the country. 

The County Council’s public consultation on the reforms was open from last October until 31st January. It was extended beyond an original deadline of 20th January to allow for more feedback. Since then around 1500 responses have been received. 

The University of Oxford submitted a response to the consultation, expressing concerns over the plans. A spokesperson from the University told Cherwell that the proposed cuts “will significantly increase response times to the areas of highest risk, undermining protection for the city’s historic buildings, laboratories, and college estate, and reducing vital day-to-day fire safety engagement with the University”. 

The proposed changes include the closure of fire stations in Woodstock, Henley, and Eynsham, and the removal of six fire engines. Fire stations in Kidlington and Rewley Road, near the city centre, could be merged and replaced with a new station in North Oxford.  

The restructuring plan looks to prioritise the daytime availability of emergency fire services. Cherwell understands that, were the cuts to be implemented, there would be only five fire engines guaranteed to be available to cover all of Oxfordshire at night, leading to an increase in response times. Twelve-hour day shifts would be introduced for firefighters across the county, and 42 OFRS employees are at risk of being made redundant.  

In the consultation, Oxfordshire County Council stated that the closures have been considered because many employees are “unable to commit to offering the hours that they once might have”, leading to “persistent low fire engine availability”. It is stressed that the changes “are forecast to have a minimal impact on overall response performance”. 

More than 150 firefighters from across the county protested the cuts outside Oxford’s County Hall on 9th December. The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) have launched a campaign under the banner “Cuts Kill”, including a petition to have the proposals withdrawn. 

Jonathan Shuker, Acting Brigade Secretary for the FBU, told Cherwell: “No engagement with employees or the FBU was sought before these proposals were sent out to the public.” 

Anneliese Dodds, Labour MP for Oxford East, is among those who have declared their opposition to the cuts. She is urging Oxford residents to sign the FBU’s petition. Numerous local councils, including West Oxfordshire District Council, have also voiced their disapproval of the proposed reforms.   

The University of Oxford has seen several recent fires, notably in Reuben College offsite accommodation last November. On the 23rd of January, fire services were called to Wadham College’s main site after a blaze broke out. Shuker told Cherwell that these incidents “show exactly why OFRS should have city centre firefighting capabilities”. 

Oxfordshire County Council was approached for comment.

‘I don’t like the idea of hope’: An interview with Iya Kiva 

Seán Timon
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‘I don’t like the idea of hope’: An interview with Iya Kiva 

Iya Kiva is an award-winning Ukrainian poet, originally from Donetsk. Since 2014, when war first came to her region, she has lived in displacement. When I speak to Iya, she is in Lviv, where funeral processions for soldiers pass daily and the wounded walk the streets. Iya’s poetry explores her reality: her home, the texture of life under siege, the work of language in wartime.

Cherwell: Please give us a picture of your daily life.

Kiva: I live in Lviv, an old and beautiful city. By Ukrainian standards I am relatively safe, although from time to time there are attacks and civilians are killed and injured here. I live near a military hospital, so every day I see soldiers being treated there. War is not something far away, you see it every day, just by going out into the street.

I live near Lychakivska Street, where funeral motorcades for soldiers pass. They are accompanied by a mournful folk song that became popular after the Maidan in 2014. I can look out the window and see public transport stopping out of respect for the dead, people kneeling. When I go to Kyiv, the situation is different. I hear explosions, listen to the shaheds circling the house where I stay, see rockets or drones shot down. Sometimes the whole night passes like this.

This is my reality, in which I write, translate, edit, read, and think. But this is only from the outside. My internal state is unstable. Since February 2022, I have not had enough intellectual energy for daily tasks, because the events in Ukraine mentally exhaust even those who live in the rear. Cities you love are under attack. People you know are killed or injured. Even when it happens to people I do not know, or cities where I have never been, I feel the tragedy has happened to me. The Ukrainian community is now a big threatened body, of which I am part, and the pain in any part of this body is my pain too.

Cherwell: Your connection to Donetsk is evident in your work. For readers who only know the name of the city through the war, what was its character before?

Kiva: Donetsk appeared on the wave of 19th century industrialisation. My region is a region of resources: coal, salt, limestone, ore for metallurgy. The city arose around a metallurgical plant and mines, with capital from Wales, Belgium, Italy, France. Donetsk is a steppe, a place of heavy human interference in nature. The factories and mines are in the city itself, not outside it. My childhood impressions are of difficult ecology. Waste heaps, artificial mountains, are scattered throughout the city. They can be pink, ashen, black.

Roses are one of its symbols, like coal. There is an interesting dichotomy: hard work underground, which resembles hell, and beautiful roses on earth. Donetsk is also associated with Vasyl Stus, one of the most significant poets and dissidents in 20th century Ukrainian literature. His uncompromising, stubborn nature seems to me part of the Donetsk mentality. Inside me, Donetsk is an internal map: where I was born, studied, worked, and lived longest. A place that shaped me and was shaped by me.

Cherwell: In your writing, personal experience and war seem to merge. Do you construct that deliberately, or does it arise on its own?

Kiva: Poetry for me is a form of thinking, of exploring myself and the world. The war has been going on for almost eleven years now, and through poetry I explore the reality in which I live with, and in, war. With each year, it becomes harder to remember what life in Ukraine was like before, what I was like before, 2014.

I need to enter into resonance with some experience, thought, or reality for a text to emerge. It’s like caring for an orchid for a long time and one day seeing a flower on its stem.

I intuitively explore sound and meaning in language rather than rationally constructing them. I find it more interesting not to know where a thought, metaphor, or line will take me. I would call it the logic of water in a river, which makes its way by mastering the landscape and moving according to its features. This seems close to the pulsation of language itself. Language that unfolds through metaphors cannot know in advance what its new metaphor will be.

Poems are a tension between me and reality. I stretch like a string to extract sound from reality, to find out how it sounds.

Cherwell: My own writing sometimes reveals me to myself. Do you experience something similar?

Kiva: Yes, poetry is a place, almost a physical space, where I am most myself, where I am absolutely naked, defenceless, vulnerable. This vulnerability is also strength, because to expose myself through words requires courage. In poetry I am naked, but also as free as possible. Writing comes naturally to me, but reading poetry in public is still uncomfortable. I feel naked in the presence of other people.

The main principle does not change: write in your own language, rely on personal experience, honestly listen to your time, and recreate its music in poetry. After 2022, a sense of responsibility was added. To the living and dead Ukrainians of many generations. Culture is a kind of flash drive for recovering identity, especially through language. I’ve become more attentive to what I can capture in poetry, not out of compulsion, but by re-adjusting the optics to see more value in the everyday. Like changing the lens on a camera, even though you’re still the same photographer.

Cherwell: Is your poetry an act of resistance? Is language a battle, and are you fighting?

Kiva: I’m a little tired of these formulations. An act of resistance is to be a soldier, a paramedic, a volunteer, to make a donation. Poetry is an art that makes the resistance of Ukrainians visible. It allows me to feel my own experience and the experience of others at the level of specific stories and emotions, to touch this experience with my hands, roll it on my tongue, hold it in my ears, twirl it in my thoughts like music that resonates in the heart.

The war destroys not only people, cities, animals and nature, but also the intellectual potential of Ukrainians as a community. Writing during war is difficult, emotionally, psychologically, practically. In this sense, Ukrainian poetry is an act of resistance to the destruction of intellectual resources and culture.

Cherwell: What is challenging you recently?

Kiva: Since the full-scale invasion, the hardest thing has been trying to control my emotions. Living in a war means living where one grief is replaced by another, one news of death by another. Ukrainian pain today is like sailing endlessly in a stormy sea, not knowing whether you will reach the shore, without seeing the shore. There is much more experience now than emotional, physical, and psychological resources to live it and reflect on it. Taking responsibility for my emotions in such circumstances is not easy, but necessary, in order to be an effective adult on whom other people can count.

Cherwell: What are you hopeful for?

Kiva: I don’t really like the idea of hope. For me, hope is associated with powerlessness, a passive role, shifting responsibility to some imaginary figure; God, another adult, snow, rain, so I don’t like it. To have hope is a great luxury. And in the world of recent changes, our already unfair world has begun to look even less hopeful. I prefer to ask myself: what can I do? You can always find some specific answer to this question if you are honest with yourself.

Oxford University to co-lead UK-Japan quantum technology projects

Apaar Agarwal
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Oxford University to co-lead UK-Japan quantum technology projects

The University of Oxford has been appointed to co-lead one of the three flagship projects of a program of science and technology collaboration between the UK and Japan. This was announced by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during Starmer’s visit to Japan on 31st January. The projects will pursue the development of quantum technology in computing.

“Distributed and secure quantum computation”, a project led by Oxford’s Professor David Lucas and the University of Tokyo’s Professor Mio Murao, addresses the challenge of moving beyond isolated laboratory experiments towards large-scale, interconnected quantum systems. The project aims to “build the foundations of a quantum internet”.

Funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), the new quantum projects have received a total of £9.2 million. The EPSRC contributed £4.5 million, and the JST provided £5.2 million.

There will also be a project focused on “massive scaling of semiconductor quantum-dot technologies”, co-led by Dr Masaya Kataoka of the National Physical Laboratory in the UK and Professor Tetsuo Kodera of the Institute of Science Tokyo. Another initiative will work on “quantum control and sensing”, co-led by Professor Janet Anders of the University of Exeter and Professor Masahito Ueda of the University of Tokyo.

The main aim of Oxford’s project is to integrate advanced hardware with privacy-preserving protocols, enabling ultra-secure communication and faster scientific discovery, while training future specialists to strengthen global quantum networks over the next five years.

Professor Lucas is an experimental atomic physicist working in the field of trapped-ion quantum computing. This approach to computing uses charged atomic particles, or ions, as physical qubits, the fundamental unit of information in quantum computing, trapped in electromagnetic fields. Professor Murao’s Japanese team will contribute complementary knowledge of quantum communication theory, ion-trap hardware, and advanced manufacturing.

In a press release, Professor Lucas said: “Similar to how the internet connects classical computers, future quantum advances depend on networking quantum processors together. This presents profound scientific and engineering challenges, particularly in ensuring these networks are scalable, secure, verifiable, and integrated.

“By fostering deep integration between leading UK and Japanese teams and their respective programmes, we aim to create a coherent, full-stack architecture and deliver concrete integration outcomes that amplify the value of current national efforts, rather than duplicating foundational developments.”

Oxford Union Librarian steps down following ‘racist’ comments

Cherwell News
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Oxford Union Librarian steps down following ‘racist’ comments

CW: Racism, Islamophobia, strong language

The Oxford Union Librarian, Brayden Lee, has stepped down from his role after making comments described as “racist” by Oxford Union members in an audio recording shared publicly. Lee is heard saying “I don’t know of a time that a British person was running up against a non-British person and won”, and describes the conduct of BAME committee members as “highly tribal”. 
Cherwell has exclusively seen Lee’s resignation, sent shortly before 8pm to the President Katherine Yang and the President-Elect. The Librarian is effectively the vice-president of the Union.

In the recording, Lee remarks that many senior figures at the Oxford Union come from ethnic minority backgrounds. When asked for an explanation for this, Lee says: “The way they see it, for hundreds of years we’ve fucked them over… we’ve tortured them, we’ve killed them, enslaved them, did all these terrible things. 

“Why the fuck now they have some level of power [are] they going to give a shred of it to us, after everything we did to them? Of course, they’re gonna look out for their own when the last time white people had power, look what [they] did to them. They need to make sure that white people will never have power.” 

Cherwell understands that the recording was made covertly. Lee has stated on social media that someone was “deliberately trying to bait [him] into saying racist things” in order to blackmail him. He said: “I have said some terrible things, and I was totally wrong to do so. I am deeply sorry to everyone, especially those affected by what I said.” Lee was approached for comment by Cherwell.

When discussing Indian and Pakistani members of the Union committee, Lee said: “They’ve got the entire fucking Raj behind them no matter what. Why bother getting rid of one of the few people that isn’t a Taliban [sic] just to put another one? It’s stupid.” The Raj is an outdated colonial term used in the 19th and 20th centuries to refer to British rule in the Indian subcontinent. 

Lee also made remarks about former Union President Israr Khan. In the recording, Lee stated that Khan is from Balochistan, “a part of Pakistan that the Taliban operates in”, and alleged that “several of his siblings went on to be in [the] Taliban”. 

President-Elect Arwa Elrayess stated on her Instagram earlier today that “Brayden has made the decision to step down from the Presidential race and will resign from his position”. She “unequivocally” condemned racism and said that it requires “accountability and reflection”. Cherwell understands that Lee was going to run for President of the Oxford Union in the elections in week 7 prior to the controversy.

The Oxford Union Rules and Regulations rule 38 (b)(iv) state that officers who resign will be “succeeded by their immediate junior”, which in the case of the Librarian office is the Librarian-Elect, currently Prajwal Pandey. The Librarian-Elect has been approached for comment.

A number of senior Union officials publicly had called for Lee’s resignation. This included the current Librarian-Elect, who described Lee’s comments as “openly racist”. Some of them pointed out the “double standard”, considering the backlash towards former President-Elect George Abaraonye following his remarks about Charlie Kirk’s shooting and the fact that Lee supported the campaign against him during Abaraonye’s vote of no confidence.

The Oxford Union has previously faced allegations of racism, including an incident in Trinity term 2024 when dozens of senior officials had called the society “institutionally racist” after disciplinary proceedings had been “disproportionately targeting individuals from non-traditional backgrounds”, including the removal of, at the time, President-Elect Ebrahim Osman-Mowafy. 

The Oxford Union declined to comment.

Anna Olliff-Cooper on being a 76-year-old student, her three-month prognosis, and defying time

Selina Chen
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Anna Olliff-Cooper on being a 76-year-old student, her three-month prognosis, and defying time

When Anna Olliff-Cooper applied to Oxford, she had just been diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer. Doctors said she had three months to live, but she hadn’t quite processed that. “If somebody says to you that you are dying within a few months, it takes an awful lot of time to sink in”, Anna said. “You think, well, they’ve made a mistake. It’s quite bewildering.”

When we spoke, she was studying art history in the Next Horizons programme, taught by Harris Manchester College and Rhodes Trust. At 76 years old, Anna was one of the oldest students at Oxford University.

Growing up near London, she got a scholarship to her local grammar school and always thought she would love to go to Oxford. But she got an offer from medical school at a time when university education was uncommon for medical students, even less so for women. “I didn’t really feel I was worthy to come to Oxford because that’s where all the very bright people go”, Anna said. Overcoming self-doubt remained a work-in-progress for her.

As a young medic, Anna took care of people with leukemia, lymphoma, and related blood cancers at a time when patients had about six weeks to live. The newly established unit in Southampton only had a portable cabin with a professor and Anna on staff. “We didn’t have computers, but we had huge sheets of graph paper, and we had to plot how people’s blood levels were going up and going down”, Anna explained.

The frontier of medicine was tough. Once, a young boy had died in the middle of the night after receiving some drugs. So the next time Anna administered the drugs, she sat up with the patient and checked blood potassium levels throughout the night. “I saw it going up and up and up, so I gave him anti-potassium treatment, and he survived”, Anna said.

The portable cabin has grown into a major oncology centre today, but Anna, with her characteristic modesty, insisted that she wasn’t a ‘pioneering leukemia researcher’ as her son described her.

Her eldest son, Jonty, who had reached out to Cherwell about this interview, wrote that his mother is “shy as a mouse” and “crippled by self-doubt”. That was despite Anna’s adventures across geographies – and times.

She had some “hairy moments” when travelling the Sahara for six months with a boyfriend. When a spring on their Land Rover broke, someone had offered to swap the part for Anna. “Fortunately, my boyfriend said no, which was quite a relief”, she chuckled.

Then she caught dysentery. “We slept on a mattress on top of the Land Rover, and I remember waking up one morning to see this vulture sitting there. I might have been hallucinating, but I certainly remember seeing this bird and thinking, ‘God, I’m much sicker than I think I am, I need a doctor.’” The borders were closed, however, and the pair had to wait a month. Anna got better – a miracle she would repeat decades later.

“I’ve done time travelling, too”, she joked as she reminisced on her part as Lady Olliff-Cooper in The Edwardian Country House, a Channel 4 reality TV programme that sent her back a century to experience an authentic Edwardian lifestyle. When her family was chosen, the producers sent them train tickets but would not tell them the destination. “We just had to get on the train,” she said, and so she did.

For all her uncertainties, Anna was remarkably candid in our conversation. “I did have an affair with a married man”, she said. “It was a dreadful ménage à trois – so embarrassing in retrospect.”

Anna worked as a GP until her retirement at age 62. She discovered a talent for portraiture, but suddenly lost some vision in the centre of her eyes. With art off-limits, Anna started training to be a therapist, and soon she was working pro bono at a centre for rape and domestic violence survivors.

Then Jonty broke his collarbone while doing a master’s at Stanford University. Anna went over to help, and while there she heard about the Stanford Distinguished Carers Institute. She became a fellow and took courses on everything from blockchains to AI. 

Back home, Anna found herself “getting very tired, then extremely tired, and then ridiculously tired”, she said. “Things started to break: I took something out of the washing machine and broke one rib, twisted suddenly and broke another rib. When I finally got to the hospital, the nurse pulled me up, and another rib gave way.” She was eventually diagnosed with amyloidosis – a disease not unlike what she spent her early years treating. Doctors gave her three months.

Anna didn’t speak in detail about her chemotherapy, but Jonty wrote of the devastating process: “The treatment was gruelling, but it worked, and she bought herself a little more life. How long, we do not know.” She attended her son’s wedding in a wheelchair and applied to Oxford at the encouragement of a friend from Stanford, not knowing if she’d live to attend. 

Just before her course was due to start, she made a recovery. “Oxford is my bucket list thing”, she said. “Other people might want to go on a cruise around the world, but I wanted to come here.”

I told Anna that many students of my age think of Oxford as a stepping stone, a place to build experience for the CV while leaving ourselves little time to learn what we enjoy. Anna instead sees her studies on women’s self portraiture in art history as “of no practical use at all”, but something she’s doing simply because she likes it.

“But I may not have much time”, she said. “The outlook of my condition is not good. If they say it’s coming back, I can probably get re-treated, but you’ve got to go all the way through [chemotherapy] only to get maybe three months with good health again.”

That hasn’t stopped her from thinking about moving to Sweden, where her son is now living with his wife. “It would be another little adventure”, Anna smiled.

First patient treated in ground-breaking retinal gene therapy trial

Lucy Pollock
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First patient treated in ground-breaking retinal gene therapy trial

A patient in Oxford has been treated for a degenerative eye condition as part of a new clinical trial by the genetic medicines company SpliceBio. The trial is testing a new gene therapy for Stargardt disease, a currently incurable inherited eye condition which leads to progressive vision loss and eventually blindness in children and adults. The condition affects up to 1 in 8,000 people worldwide. The patient in Oxford represents the start of the trial’s second phase.

Retina UK, a charity which supports people with inherited sight loss, told Cherwell: “Stargardt disease is most commonly diagnosed in children and young people and causes progressive sight loss that impacts every part of life, from education and careers to leisure and relationships.”  

A young person who has been living with Stargardt disease for ten years told Cherwell: “ A progressive eye condition means I do not know when my eyesight will dip and having to adapt again after loss of vision is very emotionally challenging for me and my family. Knowing that there is no current treatment or cure also has an impact on my family emotionally.”

The disease is caused by a mutation of the ABCA4 gene. SpliceBio’s therapy uses two harmless viruses to deliver a healthy version of the gene into the retina. Until this trial, the large size of the ABCA4 gene had made it impossible to replace using standard gene therapy methods. SpliceBio states that their gene therapy has the “potential to treat all patients across all ABCA4 mutations”.

SpliceBio secured $135 million in financing in June 2025, co-led by EQT Life Sciences and Sanofi Ventures with participation from Roche Venture Fund, as well as previous investors. EQT Life Sciences is one of Europe’s largest life sciences investors. Sanofi Ventures are investors in the early life biotech and digital health industries.

Dr Robert MacLaren, Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford, said: “The use of two viral vectors that recombine once inside retinal cells is a unique approach to restoring the large gene needed in Stargardt disease, and dual vectors might have implications for treating other retinal degenerations. This unique gene therapy modality has the potential to slow or even halt progression of this debilitating disease, which is the most common cause of inherited blindness in children. We are delighted to have treated the first patient here in Oxford, in the critical second phase of the trial.”

A representative from Retina UK told Cherwell: “Any progress in this research is exciting, particularly a clinical trial of a highly innovative approach such as SpliceBio’s. Our community would welcome treatments that have the potential to significantly slow or even stop disease progression.” 

A representative from Stargardt’s Connected, a charity which supports and connects those living with Stargardt disease, told Cherwell: “The Stargardt’s Community is very excited about latest research and developments in Stargardt’s, in particular that there are companies looking into a treatment for Stargardt’s Disease.”
The second phase of the clinical trial aims to treat 57 patients aged 12 to 65, and is predicted to conclude in 2028.

A bold choice for limited space: ‘Tick, Tick…Boom!’

Charlie Bailey
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A bold choice for limited space: ‘Tick, Tick…Boom!’

Piezoelectric Productions’ Tick, Tick…Boom! was an ambitious attempt at a classic which ran into slight difficulties with the intimacy of the Pilch performing space. The show deals with the struggling composer Jon (Laurentien Jungkamp) – semi-autobiographically based on writer Jonathan Larson – as he labours to write the next great American musical while dealing with the conflicting hopes of his girlfriend Susan (Katie Gill) and best friend Michael (Noah Rudder). This version, directed by Alexandra Russell, featured a stripped-back set themed with musical notes, and a great deal of attempted comedy via multi-rolling. 

I suspect the fact that Tick,Tick…Boom! shares a lot of the same themes as the recent Playhouse show Company (also about a lost-in-life male lead, released 20 years prior) contributed to its inability to pack a punch. The opening scene in which Jon laments being almost 30 lacked the humour needed to reel the audience in, and didn’t feel like it added much to the script. The quick-fire introductions of characters Susan and Michael needed more energy to catapult the show forwards. This was a show that improved as it developed, rather than delivering instant impact. 

This was partially due to the limitations of performing such a quintessentially American script to a tired British audience: a lot of the jokes towards the beginning, for example the ‘Sunday’ number which dramatises brunch at a restaurant, simply weren’t landing. There is famously nowhere to hide in the Pilch. Its small stage space, combined with having the audience sat around three sides, meant that each potentially funny moment that failed to deliver was unfortunately all the more noticeable. Some attempts were made to include audience members sitting on the sides (for example, during an argument, Jungkamp and Gill stand back to back rather than facing forwards), but in general, the show’s forward orientation meant those not sat at the back of the space lost out. 

Having said this, the cast should be commended for their perseverance in this difficult space. Musicals are best suited for larger performance spaces where less convincing moments can be brushed over behind grand lighting and sound arrangements. The intimacy of the Pilch meant that each time a scene ended the audience felt like they were taking the same nervous intake of breath as the actors in preparation for the next scene, rather than being transported into the musical’s imaginary world. For such a light-hearted show, the unforgiving nature of the Pilch forced the actors to be subjected to a high level of audience scrutiny. 

The most powerful performance came from Katie Gill as Susan. Her commitment to comedic moments was exemplary, eliciting laughs in the sexually charged ‘Green Green Dress’ number, as well as in her several smaller multi-rolling parts. Her vocals were strong, delivering a beautiful rendition of ‘Come to Your Senses’ when playing Karessa. 

As the show progressed the actors settled into their stride. Occasional moments brought laughs from the audience, such as when Jon buys a ridiculous number of Twinkies. Ironically for a musical, I felt the actors’ talent shone through most when they weren’t singing. I believed in the care between  Jon and Michael as they confided in each other while ‘driving’ in a car. Tension was effectively created in the moment when Michael tells Jon he is sick, although it suffered from a lack of contextualisation.

Jon and Susan’s conversations also felt more authentic as the show progressed. The chemistry in their relationship felt most real when emotions became sombre – especially at the point where Susan catches Jon kissing his colleague Karessa.  The actors’ strengths lay more in naturalistic acting than they do in the over-the-top theatricality that Tick, Tick…Boom! demands. 

The show relies on multi-rolling, and Piezoelectric Productions chose to denote each new character with a small costume change. Costume designer Ben Adams used simplistic identity markers to this effect: for example, a cloak representing the character of Jon’s agent was worn by both Rudder and Gill, amusing the audience when Rudder took on a feminine role. The choice to keep these costumes on a box onstage made these transitional moments slightly clunky. 

The best part about this show for me was the underlying musical score. This can be credited to Caitlin Hawthorn, Meg Gu, and live musicians Ally Sheridan, Tom Murphy, and Tommy Watt. The live musicians’ presence onstage was a nice touch, and their talent undeniable. One choice I did question was to place a piano onstage for Jungkamp’s character which he barely played: at points this meant he was left standing near a piano with piano music playing in the background, which felt slightly misguided. Ella Wilson’s set design, adorning the stage with sheet music stuck on pillars and hanging from the ceiling, effectively conveyed Jon’s obsession with perfecting his compositions. 

Overall, Piezoelectric Productions’ Tick Tick….Boom! retained the underlying warmth the musical is known for, but failed to execute its nuances.

‘Fresh energy’: Corpus Christi’s Owlets on their revival

Abigail Lakeland
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‘Fresh energy’: Corpus Christi’s Owlets on their revival

Owlets, Corpus Christi College’s drama society, has existed since the 18th century. Until COVID, Owlets was incredibly active, producing regular shows both in Oxford and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Cherwell sat down with Clara Woodhouse, Owlets President, to discuss their resurgence.

“[Owlets was] properly big scale. Then, lockdown happened and kind of nerfed it,” says Clara.

Cherwell’s online archive holds two positive reviews of pre-COVID Owlets productions. Shakespeare’s As You Like It was directed by John Retallack and Renata Allen back in 2017. A playful, original satire, for legal reasons titled Redacted Arachnid, was put on in 2019. Redacted Arachnid was described by the reviewer as “one of the most enjoyable things I’ve watched all year.”

Post-COVID, Owlets was no longer producing its own shows, let alone staging original scripts. It did, however, continue to fund external productions, such as Analogia Productions’ Suddenly Last Summer in Trinity 2025. Clara’s predecessor, Logan Allen, told Cherwell: “after lockdown, the society seemed to slump […] it never waved the Owlets’ banner.”

Owlets made its “re-debut”, to borrow Clara’s words, in Trinity term 2025: a production of Euripides’ The Bacchae, with Logan Allen at the helm as President. Inevitably, with an inexperienced team attempting to resuscitate the poor dying Owl(et), there were some… hiccups. Saul Kesteven, actor and Owlets Treasurer between 2024 and 2025, calls the final result “an accidental comedy.”

“We had last minute substitutions, cast members dropping out the day before […] all sorts of technical and logistical issues which we didn’t have the experience to predict,” says Saul. “Originally, I was not intending to take an acting role [but] I ended up filling in the roles of Tiresias and a member of the chorus, something which I ended up enjoying immensely.”

“The Bacchae was… something,” says Logan. “Very much our first pancake. It still did well financially, but we were all going in blind. It was a key learning experience for the whole committee and a starting point for what can hopefully be a revival of Owlets. [As President,] I wanted to reignite Owlets as a uni-wide drama name.”

After The Bacchae, it seemed like the revival might be over before it really began. “It seemed like Owlets was going to fall flat on its face moments into us bringing it back,” Saul explains. “Many of us on [the] committee were set on dropping it as soon as The Bacchae was done.” 

Instead, realising they “actually had a lot of fun”, the team committed to another production in the new academic year. In MT25, Owlets put on Shakespeare’s Richard III. “We’d already been through the fires of a fairly poor production and come out stronger for it,” Saul recalls. “We also had a variety of more experienced cast and crew members, including Clara [director of Richard III], who were an immense help.”

For Logan, who played Richard, there were still some challenges. The big problem? “The lines, mainly. I was definitely overconfident,” he recalls. “Our dress rehearsal was awful.” Regardless, Richard III brought a fresh energy to Owlets. “It set a precedent for what Owlets can do on a relatively small budget, and [it used] a majority Corpus cast, many of whom had not acted before or only had little experience.” 

One such Corpuscle was Nicko Lawrence. The first-year Classics student played Edward IV, and described how responsive Owlets was to scheduling demands: “The team involved in the production was incredibly flexible concerning the demands of our degrees.”

Owlets isn’t just for Corpus students: Clara highlights that anyone can audition for Owlets productions. Plus, a recent change in the constitution has meant that now only 50% of the committee must be Corpuscles.

In Trinity term 2026, Owlets will put on Tennessee Williams’ The Magic Tower. Clara describes “the disconnect” between the “dreamland escape” of Jim and Linda compared to their actual experience of abject poverty. “We’ve got a good vision,” she teases. “I want to keep tackling new things. We’ve done a Greek tragedy. We’ve done Shakespeare.” Owlets is keen not to get into a rut, so it seems.

When it comes to advice for anyone keen to get involved but unsure where to start, Clara says it’s about putting yourself out there even when it’s scary. “Just get involved and get applying for things,” she says. Describing the first time she applied for a crew role, she recalls: “I was so nervous. But everyone was so happy to help.” Corpus Christi students are offered more specific advice: “For Corpuscles, literally just send me a DM.”

On the future of Owlets, Clara sees things as a lot less bleak than post-Bacchae. “Everyone is quite keen for Owlets to be revived,” says Clara. Interest has been registered by Corpus alumni, who have fond memories of watching and performing in Owlets productions. “It comes with a lot of pressure. It’s [all] these years of history and it’s sat,” she puts her hands on her shoulders. “Here.”

Clara might be nervous, but it appears that Corpuscles have full faith in her. “I’m really excited to see what Clara and her new committee have planned,” says Saul. “It is likely that the next Owlets production takes a completely different approach, which I am very excited to see.”

Logan describes the Owlets’ ethos as one which balances quality with fun. “[It’s] a student drama group that is enjoyable and [puts] on developing productions whilst not taking itself too seriously all the time.” Logan embodied this as Richard during Richard III. As closing-night audience members may recall, Logan once improvised a shirtless fight scene. “We want to put on good, enjoyable productions, whilst also not expecting everything to be perfect […] there’s a playfulness in what we put on. They’re often passion projects for the committee.”

Logan’s goal as President was to build a new foundation for Owlets, centred around the Corpus community. “I think a lot of my time was, hopefully, setting a groundwork that can take Owlets into a positive direction,” says Logan. 

On his successor, he’s nothing but lauding. Clara joined Owlets as Secretary in Hilary term 2025, but immediately became a standout contributor. “She had already worked on productions with OUDs before and her experience was incredibly helpful,” Logan explained. “I have no doubt she will bring success to [Owlets].”

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