Friday 27th February 2026
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Haleh Blake: A vessel for the voices of Iranians

Gavriella Epstein-Lightman
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Haleh Blake: A vessel for the voices of Iranians

Haleh Blake was always told she was worth half a man. “As you grow up as a girl, from very early on, you realise that you’re treated as a second-class citizen”, she tells me.

Blake is a British-Iranian human rights activist who lived in Iran until she was 14. She is co-founder of United4Mahsa, a non-partisan social activist group which works to bring attention to human rights issues in Iran.

Blake’s passion and determination is immediately evident. Her activism is rooted in memory and lived experience rather than ideology and worldview. There is a steeliness, an iron-willed determination about her. She has no time for demoralisation – only action.

We begin our conversation by discussing her childhood in Iran. “In the morning at schools [sic], they make you chant, death to America, death to Israel, death to England”, Blake recalls. “Everything was controlled.” Musical instruments, TV shows, Disney movies – all were banned. Morality police patrolled busy areas, arresting women who did not comply with modesty rules. Blake’s first memory of the morality police was when her brother and aunt were arrested while walking together in the street and were questioned about their relationship.

Growing up in the 1980s without the internet, there was little exposure to the world outside Iran. Yet Blake came across photos of her parents from before the 1979 revolution, in which women wore miniskirts rather than hijabs. She questioned how Iran had transformed from a Westernised society into a “military state” in which basic freedoms were denied.

Iran was once on a path towards progressive expansion of women’s rights. From the 1930s to the 1970s, under the Pahlavi dynasty, Iranian society underwent a profound modernisation and secularisation even as the Pahlavis maintained a monopoly on political power. In 1963, women earned the right to vote. By the late 1970s, Iran had female politicians, judges and diplomats. Family Protection Laws in 1967 and 1975 increased the minimum age of marriage for women from 9 to 18 years old. But in 1979 these advances were sharply reversed. The Islamic Republic, headed by Ayatollah Khomeini, overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty in the 1979 Revolution and introduced Sharia Law, rewriting the role of women in Iranian society. Mandatory hijab laws were introduced and gender segregation returned in a new era of state-imposed ‘modesty’.  

I ask Blake how Iran has changed since her childhood in the 1980s. “Nothing has really changed”, she replies regretfully. “What has changed is that people are more educated. There’s been a shift where Iranian youth have become so integrated mentally with the rest of the world through social media.” As Blake speaks, I’m struck by the cruel reality of young, aspirational teenagers being exposed to a world of freedoms and opportunities which are denied to them.

“This is so personal to me”, Blake says. “I’m a feminist, first and foremost, and the reason for that is because of what happened to me.” It is evident in her words that she carries with her the experiences of her past – the memories of being worth less as a woman, of being controlled in every aspect of life. It will never leave her. Now, it is these memories that propel her forward, urging her to speak out for those who have no voice.

Blake was 14 when she moved to the UK with her family. “Coming to the UK, I was striving to be equal”, she says. Blake gained opportunities she would never have had in Iran. Having grown up under authoritarianism, Blake does not take for granted the life she leads. “All I want is for Iranians inside, Iranian girls, to have the same opportunities, because I’m essentially the same as them”, she says. “I was born there, and I just had an escape route. My parents didn’t want their daughter to grow up in Iran.” 

It was in 2022 that Blake became a leading advocate for human rights in Iran. On 13 September of that year, Jina Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, was detained by the morality police for failing to wear the hijab properly. Eyewitnesses say that police pushed her into a van and beat her severely. She died three days later in hospital. A UN fact-finding mission later found the Iranian state responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death, which sparked a nationwide protest movement united under the slogan ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’. Iranian authorities responded with force, firing live ammunition and tear gas into crowds of largely peaceful protesters, leading to an estimated 550 deaths.

Blake was compelled to act. “What I realized is there’s a whole network of lobbyists for the regime that are paid from inside Iran, who are running the regime’s narrative globally”, she says. Indeed, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) is widely viewed as a de facto ‘Iran lobby’, due to its endorsement of positions which align with the interests of the Islamic regime, including opposition to sanctions on Iran and objection to the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. To combat this misinformation and propaganda, Blake posted daily updates on the situation in Iran on social media.

She also started going to protests in support of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement. At the start, there were only a few people holding placards in Trafalgar Square. Nobody knew each other. “We were all very scared. We used to go to protests in the UK with our face masks and sunglasses”, Blake notes. “That’s no longer the case. We’re still afraid, but at least we trust each other.” Blake’s caution is understandable: the Islamic regime has long targeted activists abroad, through both online harassment and physical threats. A 2021 report by Freedom House, an advocacy group in Washington DC, found that Iran engages in transnational repression in at least nine different countries, using tactics like assassinations, constant surveillance and threats to family members still in Iran.

Blake was among a group of protesters who decided to collaborate on social media to raise awareness collectively rather than individually. They founded the advocacy group United4Mahsa. It aims to provide information on the Islamic Regime’s repression of its people by providing English updates, translating reports that British-Iranians like Blake were receiving in Farsi from inside Iran. United4Mahsa quickly created its own press release to direct journalists to this information, sharing and verifying information for The Guardian, The Times and other news outlets. 

Speaking to people inside Iran is a crucial aspect of Blake’s activism. “I don’t come from a monarchy-loving family. My family revolted against that”, she says. Yet it quickly became evident to her that many Iranians were supportive of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah. “If those inside Iran are telling me that they support him and they don’t trust anyone else, then who am I to say anything else?” Indeed, the anti-regime protests which gained momentum last month saw widespread support for Pahlavi. Videos showed masses chanting “Javid Shah”, meaning “long live the king”. 

Many Iranians see Pahlavi as a transitional figure best placed to oversee the country’s transition to democracy. Pahlavi himself has said he does not wish to stand for political office. But in April 2025, Pahlavi’s office unveiled the Iran Prosperity Project, a group of papers which set out a roadmap for a post-regime Iran. Clause 12.6 outlines the need to hold a referendum for the nation to choose a system of government: a democratic monarchy or a democratic republic. A transition to democracy enjoys broad support among Iranians. A June 2024 survey found that just 20% wanted the Islamic Republic to remain in power, and 89% supported democracy.

Blake emphasises that her role as an activist is not confined to promoting her own specific viewpoint. “I see myself now as a vessel”, she emphasises. “All my personal views are on hold until Iran is free.” This duty to faithfully represent the views of Iranians stems from Blake’s conviction that she must use her platform to speak for the tens of millions who have no voice. She views herself as connecting Iranians to the rest of the world; personal preference is a privilege to be gained upon democracy’s ascent.

Blake and I turn to the most recent anti-regime protests in Iran, which started on 28 December 2025. The protests originated in the bazaars – the commercial heart of Iran’s economy – as the Iranian rial plunged to a new low against the US Dollar. Demonstrations proliferated in Tehran and other cities across the country in ensuing days. The focus of the protests quickly became political, as demonstrators began chanting anti-government statements such as “Death to the Dictator”. By 4th January, videos emerged showing security forces shooting indiscriminately at protesters. Four days later, the government imposed an extensive internet blackout which aimed to prevent details of the regime’s crackdown being beamed to the world.

The 8th and 9th January were two of the bloodiest days of the protests. The Crown Prince called for protests on both days and “millions came out”. Intelligence suggests that at least 1.5 million people took to the streets in Tehran alone on the 8th January. “The accounts I’m getting from people is that it was a sea of people”, Blake tells me. “The first thing that everyone said is that everyone’s out, we won.” Yet any illusion of victory was shattered once the regime started shooting.

The protesters came from all aspects of society. “I’ve seen videos of 11-year-olds asking people to come out, and I’ve seen a 70-year-old woman in crutches on the corner, in her hijab, chanting death to the dictator”, Blake explains. “These images really show the diversity of those who are unhappy.”

“Some of these stories I have been translating, honestly, I don’t wish anyone to hear them”, Blake says quietly. I sense that she shares with Iranians across the globe a feeling of helplessness, watching on from afar as the regime’s oppression continues unabated. What remains in her power is remembrance: ensuring the stories of those killed are never forgotten.  

Blake is keen to emphasise that the protests were not motivated solely by a concern for women’s rights. It was not simply a feminist movement. “Men are very much also a victim of this regime”, Blake observes. Ultimately, people were protesting for so much more than human rights within a theological framework: they were calling for an end to the Islamic regime entirely. It is a regime viewed by many Iranians as an occupying ideological force which cannot be modified and requires dismantlement.

Amidst the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protests of 2022, Blake says she was “bombarded with requests” from western media for information. Many interviews were particularly interested in the feminist angle. Earlier this year, she received media requests during the height of the protests, but with their brutal suppression the media coverage quickly died down. Undeniably, the Western media has been restrained in its coverage of the government crackdown in Iran. Blake tells me she reached out to hundreds of journalistic contacts to implore them to cover the protests, only to be rejected. An expression of despair crosses her face as it’s clear that she feels many have not truly recognised or supported the bravery and sacrifice of the Iranian protesters.

The regime’s crackdown killed over 36,500 people in just a few days. Why, then, has the political left been so conspicuously silent about these human rights abuses? Blake points out that many of those who were so outspoken about the humanitarian situation in Gaza were markedly muted about the Iranian regime’s crackdown. Tom Fletcher, the UN Humanitarian Chief, for instance, has been silent on the killing of protesters in Iran. This, she says, is the latest iteration of a years-long trend of progressive figures turning a blind-eye to the regime’s crimes. She recalls in 2016, when Jeremy Corbyn accepted £20,000 to appear on Press TV, the Iranian state broadcast network, a channel banned in the UK for its part in filming the detention and torture of an Iranian journalist.

“In the last few weeks, I have been trying to engage with left-wing political parties, and they’re not engaging”, Blake says, her head lowering in disappointment. She observes that the left sees the Islamic Republic as a victim of imperialism, oppressed by America and Israel. This worldview means that many “can no longer deem them as oppressors of their own people”, she notes. “It comes from a place of privilege for some of these people, where they sit in a higher moral ground of ideologies, but actually don’t understand what it’s like to live under some of these dictatorships. They are so removed from the realities of the Middle East.”

What can the British government do to aid the Iranians who want an end to the regime? Blake’s eyes light up as I ask this. Her answer is clear and determined – it’s a question she’s evidently been waiting to answer. “Stop negotiating with our killers. Prescribe the IRGC. Close down the centres of the Islamic Republic on British soil.”  She wants to see the expulsion of Iranian ambassadors, because “you can’t negotiate with a terrorist organisation”. Finally, she implores political leaders to “engage with Reza Pahlavi” as a legitimate leader of the pro-democracy Iranian opposition.

When I ask what will need to change for the protests to succeed, Blake’s response is immediate. “Every single Iranian I’ve spoken to is asking for intervention”, she asserts. “How do we avoid more violence? How do we protect more lives? Surgical intervention is actually the most logical way.” 

I end my conversation with Blake on an optimistic note: her vision of a post-regime Iran. Imagining what Iran could become brings a small source of comfort amidst the grief and trauma which lingers a month on from the government crackdown.

“My dream is to be able to work with Iran, work for Iran”, Blake says. She envisions an Iran which is “prosperous and friendly to the world”, with a thriving economy, burgeoning trade, and good relations with other countries. “I want to get to the ballot boxes. I want to see that people have the choice to decide their own fate”, Blake emphasises. She does not care whether the outcome is constitutional monarchy or republicanism, only that a true democracy with genuine checks and balances emerges.

For 47 years, Iran has not been able to contribute its culture and heritage to the world.  “Imagine what’s going to come out when it’s all free”, Blake points out. “We are a 7,000-year-old nation with a deep-rooted interest in literature, in history, in architecture, in music, and in art.”

“Tourism will be incredible. We’re so excited to share Iran with everyone!”, Blake exclaims, a smile spreading across her face. “I can’t wait to take my husband and my friends, just to share a piece of everything I’ve described to them.”

As my conversation with Blake draws to a close, I’m reminded of the principle guiding her activism: true solidarity is not about speaking for others, but rather ensuring they are heard. Her message is clear: listen to Iranians and stand with them in their fight for freedom. It is a promise she upholds in every social media post, every television appearance, and every protest. She will never give up. 

The ‘Silent’ Film

Willow Jopp
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The ‘Silent’ Film

Not speaking does not necessarily mean having nothing to say. As much can be said with an image, movement, or glance as with a word. Since film is an inherently visual medium, the concept of ‘show, don’t tell’ is precisely what differentiates it from literature, which relies on the memory and the intrinsic and ineffaceable meaning to be found in language. Words are clumsy; they carry in them presupposed connotations and histories, and can allude to what is not present, while film images belong to a concrete ‘now’. The ‘silent’ film (a film which uses silence as a filmmaking tool), then, can be seen as film in its purest form, and the form which requires the most attention, intuition, and interpretation from its audience.

Silent images do not explain themselves. We do not hear what Chow Mo-wan whispers into the wall at the end of In the Mood for Love, or what Bob Harris whispers to Charlotte at the end of Lost in Translation. Nor do we need to – images speak only for themselves. Silence allows for anything to be said; it contains infinite meaning. It is when the film trusts its audience to come to their own conclusion, and to feel things without being told what to feel. Silence is therefore an act of restraint and respect – the refusal to translate feeling into language, when language would only limit it. It expresses the inexpressible, and acknowledges that language is sometimes inadequate. The final shot of Call Me by Your Name depicts emotion expressed without articulation, and while In the Mood for Love or Lost in Translation could tell us anything, this shot tells us everything. In silence, the concepts of joy, loss, and memory can coexist – concepts which existed before words and which can exist without them.

Silence makes you aware of what is usually silenced, or what we have subconsciously tuned out. The bomb detonation in Oppenheimer is silent in a way which makes you realise that your heart is racing, and the silence and isolation of space in Gravity reminds you of your own breathing, and your presence sat wordlessly in a cinema surrounded by people. Through silence, cinema stops addressing the mind and instead speaks directly to the body. It is a tool that makes the spectator aware of their own presence, disrupting passive immersion. It also makes them aware of what is absent, what they have taken for granted: music, company, life.

As a result, the elements which were once silenced by the speaker – expression, gesture, costume, set, music – gain a new expressive power. They now are equals with the speaker, sharing in silence. It is in the traditional silent film in which this idea finds its most concentrated expression. The Last Laugh, an underrated gem from the German Expressionist movement, and a true ‘silent’ film because of its lack of intertitles, communicates everything to its audience through body language, emotional and evocative facial expressions, camera movement, and framing. It is able to transcend language barriers and we can engage with it on a purely visual and instinctive level, as film is boiled down to its essence – images which create meaning through their construction and arrangement in sequence.

Because ‘silent’ images rely on their filmic construction to create meaning, they demand our constant attention. Movies in recent years have been criticised for the ‘dumbing down’ of scripts, such as through dialogue which overexplains, with the assumption that films are being watched by people who are also scrolling on their phones. Silence allows for dedicated attentiveness, or even scrutiny, towards what is being shown to you, rather than passively accepting what you are being told. Films may therefore feel harder to understand, but it is the role of the filmmaker to risk being misunderstood in order to preserve the integrity of the image.

“Feelings are intense, words are trivial”, as the Depeche Mode song goes. Choosing silence, then, is to preserve the emotional complexity that language so often flattens. If silence redistributes responsibility from film to spectator, it also demands a different mode of viewing. Appreciate the pleasures, emotions, and pains which films can bring without words. Take back responsibility as a viewer, allow yourself to come to your own conclusions, engage emotionally with what you see. The world is noisy enough; people are ceaselessly telling us how we should be thinking and feeling. In times like this, the most meaningful form of escapism is to put on a film, and enjoy the silence.

Oxford City Council publishes plans for Covered Market redevelopment

Lily Gage
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Oxford City Council publishes plans for Covered Market redevelopment

Oxford City Council has published its latest plans for the redevelopment of the Covered Market. The City Council invited the market’s traders to discuss the next steps for the project, which began at the end of January.

The regeneration project will cost £8 million, and will involve essential revamps to the 250-year-old building. The Council says it still aims to respect the market’s unique history, charm, and legacy throughout the redevelopment process. 

The plans include upgrading the old infrastructure, improving layouts and routes, and making Market Street more welcoming and pedestrian-friendly. The Council stated in a press release that this will “enhance the experience for businesses, locals and visitors for generations to come”.

Over the next few months, the Council aims to continue working closely alongside traders as the plans move to their next stage, with hopes of a new contractor joining the project early this year. This contractor will collaborate with businesses as the project moves through its phases, and will also ensure safe access is maintained, and that any temporary internal diversions are minimised, in order to keep customers moving safely and efficiently through the building.

Plans for the project were approved in 2023, and construction is expected to take place in 2027 at the earliest. The Council predicts that the works will take about 18 months to complete, however exact timings are yet to be determined until on-site inspections begin. 

The Covered Market will remain open throughout construction, and the Council has assured traders that none of them will be left without a space. They have also promised any trader affected by the works, including the layout changes, an alternative location within the market. Every trader has been invited to a full traders’ meeting in February, where further details will be discussed with the businesses. Individual meetings have also been taking place with most affected businesses.

The plans involve the relocation of the existing toilet block, an increase in female toilet provision, the creation of a new open court to improve the market’s internal layout and atmosphere, additional retail space, and upgrades to utilities including wiring.

In a press release, the City Council stated that “this is an exciting moment in the market’s history and our best chance to make sure it gets the upgrades and attention it needs to last another 250 years.” 

The Covered Market was opened in 1774, and initially consisted of 20 butchers’ shops. It was designed by John Gwynn, also known for designing Magdalen Bridge. It was later rebuilt and enlarged in 1834-40 by Thomas Wyatt the younger, and underwent several phases of building and reconstruction throughout the 19th century onwards. It was listed as grade II in March 2000 and is located within the Central and City Conservation Area. 

Since its inception, the market has become an iconic architectural and cultural landmark for the city of Oxford, attracting tourists from across the globe. It is a valuable building in its rarity as a covered market which has been in continual use for hundreds of years, and is still in use today.

A day in The Sun: ‘Ink’ at St John’s

Beatrix Arnold
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A day in The Sun: ‘Ink’ at St John’s

James Graham’s Ink, directed by Georgina Cooper with the St John’s Drama Society, dramatises Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of The Sun in the 1960s, tracing its astonishing surge to unprecedented popularity. Perhaps it was an awareness of the slightly meta aspect of reviewing a play about journalism for a student publication that drew me to the auditorium in St John’s – in any case, by the end of the evening, I was not exactly reassured in my choice of vocation.

The plot follows Larry Lamb, an editor filched from The Mirror by Rupert Murdoch in his self-aggrandising effort to reboot the failing tabloid, The Sun. Overcoming an overwhelming lack of funding, resources, and staff, the limited editorial team see The Sun’s steady rise to success, and are in turn faced with the complications that form the inevitable corollary to this. 

Rohan Joshi carried much of the show’s vivacity in his role as Larry Lamb, careening over the stage with an infectious nervous energy as he recruits and then manages his hastily-assembled team. The ‘boardroom’ scenes were a particular highlight, with the editor waxing increasingly passionate about the minutiae of newspaper formatting (an episode which, I’m sure, would have felt familiar to all Cherwell staff). Other standout performances included Inaya Chaudhry as an increasingly disenchanted Stephanie Rahn, portraying the model with just the right balance of elegant naivety. Zach Kapterian gave an endearingly awkward performance as Beverly, with effective comedic timing that consistently raised laughs. 

Laurence Skinner portrayed an erratic Murdoch (for better or worse, there was no attempt at an Australian accent). The businessman was intimidating and unpredictable, sporadically erupting into outbursts of hysterical passion, or profane vituperations. He delivered his lines in an abrupt, barking manner, which conveyed the requisite impression of volatile intensity, but made it somewhat difficult to understand his enunciation. 

The play’s idiolect was characterised by a brand of dry and sarcastic Britishness, replete with lewd innuendos, passive aggressiveness, and awkward pauses. It was gratifying to see copies of Cherwell being used liberally as props – although the criticism of its front page in lieu of The Mirror was less than flattering. The two levels of the auditorium’s stage were put to inventive use: in a particularly memorable scene, the reactions of the rival papers to the news of The Sun’s unexpected success were staged simultaneously on the separate layers. The sound design, although a little farcical at times, was impressively extensive, particularly the echoing effect in the church scene, transforming the otherwise simplistic mise-en-scène to reproduce the reverential sombreness of the projected location. 

However, the play, divided in two by an interval, as a whole felt unbalanced. The first half breezily follows the early stages of publication, leaning heavily into the comedic aspects, and drawing out each distinct character with energy and wit. In the second half, however, the scrappy underdog narrative was displaced by an abruptly grim kidnapping story: rapid banter gave way to hushed anxiety, the pacing slowed down palpably, and the lighting became ominously tenebrous. Yet the established emotional valence of the preceding action meant that the tonal shift was less than cohesive; the discrepancy was, overall, too drastic and too sudden for it to feel natural. Lamb morphs startlingly from enthusiastic and likeable, to sinister and brooding, playing up the contrast to such an extent that the two halves felt like entirely different plays. As a result, it seemed to form a slightly facile ‘debate’ structure, examining the tabloid first in a positive and then a negative light. Graham’s scrupulous avoidance of sermonising on press ethics came across here as rather convoluted – it would have been more effective were he to have come down on one side or the other. 

The darker scenes veered on the side of the melodramatic: red paint is splattered across a white canvas, leaving the stain lingering for the rest of the play in a less than subtle visual metaphor. A soundscape of ominous thunder formed the sonic counterpart to this, investing the drama with a Gothic exaggeration that sat in problematic juxtaposition with the naturalism of the first half. Graham’s script presupposes an interest in Murdoch’s career; if the world of journalism doesn’t appeal to you, the play would come across as somewhat monotonous. This emerges particularly during the protracted one-on-one meetings between Murdoch and Lamb, wherein the former descants endlessly on abstract ideals and cliched rhetoric in a manner that, by the end of the two and half hours, makes you inclined to think the entire industry should be discontinued. 

Perhaps because of the strictures of the script, which refuses to come to any kind of conclusion, an opportunity for political engagement was missed. The show was staged more as a period drama; its application to modern life was, unfortunately, overlooked. In spite of the failings of the script, the play was, on the whole, well executed, if a little too overblown and heavy-handed in places. Several strong individual performances ensured the production’s appeal, and attest to the burgeoning potential of these actors. Ultimately, the play left me with a newfound appreciation for the working environment at Cherwell – it could be far worse. 

Larry Sanders on Trump, climate change, and moral conviction

Isaac Gavaghan
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Larry Sanders on Trump, climate change, and moral conviction

Sitting in his kitchen in East Oxford, Larry Sanders, local Oxford politician and brother of Bernie Sanders, speaks with honesty and conviction. His powerful rhetorical ability is a refreshing contrast to the sound-bite politics that dominates Westminster today.

Nowhere is Sanders’ honesty and conviction more clearly appreciable than on Trump. Sanders is unequivocal: “Not that long into the future, people will look back on him as probably the most successful mass murderer, and he has good competition. He will outdo Hitler and Stalin, because the number of people who will die because climate change [action] was slowed down even further is incalculable, is in tens of millions, hundreds of millions perhaps.”

What life experiences led to the development of this view? The answer begins in the Brooklyn Jewish community into which he was born in 1935. The Sanders’ lost family in the Holocaust, and the shadow of the Nazi’s atrocities influences Larry Sanders’ politics. He describes how “even as a child I thought, ‘I don’t think the Germans are that different’”. Reflecting on the rise of the far right in Europe and America, Sanders warns that “if we don’t manage to have a decent successful political organisation in most countries, things will get viciously worse. It may turn out the Nazis were not the exception”.

The controversial use of the Nazis as a comparison for Trump reveals the unflinching principles that are the throughline of Sanders’ politics and personality. I ask Sanders where this fiery politics began. The excitement is still palpable in his voice as he recounts his sudden immersion into the politically charged student government at Brooklyn College. Yet tragedy was about to strike. The President of Brooklyn College, Harry Gideonse, planned to overhaul the student government to reduce political discussion within it. Sanders recounts: “I had seen my future, and he was taking it away!”  

Gideonse planned to make the student government consist of a representative from each club at Brooklyn College; the haven of political discussion that had so excited the young Larry Sanders was disappearing. Sanders’ response was typically principled and entirely ineffective. With his friend, Arthur Steier, Sanders prepared, published, and distributed a pamphlet entitled Common Sense. 74 years later, he is clearly still proud of the quality of the opening lines, which he quotes: ‘‘Student government at Brooklyn College is undemocratic in principle, deceptive in practise, and totally inconsistent with education in a free society.” Sanders draws out the story, a sparkle in his eye as he builds the tension. 

After the pamphlets were handed out, Larry and his friend Arthur were called into a “very high-powered meeting” with the dean, who had flown overnight from Chicago to Brooklyn because of the severity of the emergency. Larry remembers that also in the meeting were “a couple of very odd-looking people there who I’d never seen before. It turned out they were FBI”. The FBI investigators asked the young Larry a question: “Do you realise in New Jersey there’s a fascist group called Common Sense?” Larry cannot stop from joining my laughter at the punchline of his story.

Yet the story is tinged with sadness. Larry’s friend Arthur continued to campaign against the lack of student representation until his battle against Brooklyn College President Harry Gideonse got him expelled, and, after a series of appeals, his case was dismissed by the US  Supreme Court. The story, and Larry’s attitude to it, serious and principled yet amused at the absurdity of politics, is an apt amalgam for his later career.

Sanders had always been guided by his belief in following moral principles, but the unbending nature of these principles has sometimes left him unable to enact the change he wished to see. As Sanders himself says of his time as a local Green Party politician in Oxford between 2005 and 2013, “in terms of success there’s not a lot”. Rather like Arthur Steier attempting to take on Brooklyn College, Sanders admits the limits of the principled approach to political action: “As a very minority party, you don’t succeed a lot.” However, Sanders does not reduce his experience down to a simple story of failure. He recalls his success when he worked with Conservative county councillors to expand the availability of continuing healthcare provision in Oxfordshire, bringing in millions of pounds for the elderly who were in need. Sanders is an unusually non-partisan politician – listening to him, it seems that he is explaining so that I can understand, rather than to try and convince me of the accuracy of one political viewpoint or another.

This non-partisan nature is a thread of continuity in Sanders’ story. Before Sanders was a Green councillor on Oxfordshire County Council, he was a member of the Labour Party. Active in the Party in Oxford from the 1980s, Sanders quit Labour in 2001 over Tony Blair’s shift to the right. It is hard not to see the parallels with today’s political moment. 

As I probe Sanders’ take on the Labour Party’s failings, he describes how, during a campaign to stop the local Conservative Party from ending the provision of nursery places in Oxfordshire, the leader of the Labour group on the county council walked out of a council meeting to tell the protestors outside that their chanting was “making the Conservatives angry”. For Sanders, the anecdote represents a tendency within the right-wing of the 1980s Labour Party to fear annoying the Conservatives. As Sanders puts it, the right of the Labour Party were “nervous that if they spoke up too much someone would just step on them”. The U-turns of the Starmer administration over the past 18 months show that this tendency within Labour never went away.

Despite Sanders’ gloomy predictions for Britain’s and the world’s political future, he still hopes for a “decent society”. For Sanders,  our best hope for getting there is if the Green Party replaces the Labour PartyGHe argues that their path to power is through the votes of the elderly. He describes how being old in Britain means pensions which are comparatively worse than those in Europe, and a social care system that forces those who need help to pay. Between 2016 and 2021, when Sanders was Health and Social Care Spokesperson for the Green Party, he raised the profile of social care as a political issue for the Green Party. This work led him to introduce a successful motion to make Green Party policy social care free at the point of use. In the context of a political discourse that loves to talk about the generational divide between voters, this idea of a coalition of young and old might be a surprising political conclusion. Yet for those, like Sanders, who grew up under the influence of left-wing leaders in the first half of the twentieth century, like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the USA and Clement Attlee in Great Britain, perhaps this political alliance makes sense.

Sanders’ insight into Britain’s political malaise is certainly sharp, as one would expect from someone with nearly five decades of experience in British politics. When I ask him how his politics has changed over the course of his life, he describes his belief that “poverty is never just poverty, it’s always psychological as well. It means it impacts your day-to-day feelings. It is bad enough to be cold, but to know that there is no particular reason to be cold, to know that your children are going to be cold, you have to either be very angry or feel worthless or both.” He reaches for the words of John Maynard Keynes in 1938: “What a country can do, it can afford.” Sanders points out that “the affording is the easy part, doing it is hard”. Over his life, his political principles have crystalised and his resolve has become firmer: “If anything I am angrier.” This anger stems from a compassion with what he terms “unnecessary” suffering. 

But this does not dent his hope: “It is possible to have a decent society; you have the usual things and none of it is spectacular.” In the increasingly febrile political atmosphere of the present moment, Sanders’ calm, unspectacular focus on a “decent society” is refreshing and reassuring.

‘Cathy naur’: Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ in review

Nora Miles
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‘Cathy naur’: Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ in review

“You have a problem with Saltburn? Shhh. Quiet luxury,” says Tina Fey during her 2024 appearance on the Las Culturistas podcast, “Because what are you going to do when Emerald Fennell calls you about her next project […] where Act Three takes a sexually violent turn and you have to pretend to be surprised by that turn?” Did “Wuthering Heights” turn out to be as predictably mindless and gratuitously pornographic as we expected? I paid £13.50 and sacrificed three hours of my life to give you the answer.  

Although my Yorkshire identity and love of 19th-century novels make me inclined to defend Emily Brontë with all my might, I really did give this film a chance. I told myself that an adaptation can stand apart from its source material. I let myself be reassured by the fact that “Wuthering Heights” was written in quotation marks in the film’s title, and that this meant that Fennell had a new vision to offer. I tried to withhold judgement until I could fully understand what that vision was. But after what felt like an eternity of trying and failing to find anything of merit in the film, it was the entire audience bursting into laughter as soon as the credits rolled which reassured me that a negative review was both acceptable and appropriate. 

I just have no idea what Fennell was trying to achieve. The only question she succeeded in answering was ‘what if Wuthering Heights looked like the batcave?’ Monolith to boot, I’m not joking. It felt like Fennell’s adaptation was constantly trying to reinvent itself mid-movie. She spent half an hour producing trite Netflix original romance, the next actually committing herself to depicting the complex emotion of the novel, then quickly slip into her comfort zone of camp surrealist slop, and as soon as you’d got used to that she pivoted towards slapstick comedy. 

In this last iteration I would say she had the most success; Martin Clunes and Alison Oliver deliver incredible comedic performances. The issue is such that alongside them, Robbie and Elordi seem like they too are giving comic interpretations. Nate Jacobs pronouncing his love for Cathy in a half-arsed Yorkshire accent while Charli XCX plays in the background is, in fact, very funny. The only thing more hilarious is to remember mid-viewing that Jacob Elordi is currently nominated for an Oscar for Frankenstein. In “Wuthering Heights“, however, he was outacted by 16-year-old Owen Cooper.In his defence, I can’t help but feel like it was the script that hunkified one of literature’s most complex anti-heroes, not necessarily Elordi’s uninspired portrayal. 

My two cents on the discourse surrounding the choice to cast Elordi: it is representative of a systematic disregard for any theme in the novel more complicated than the tragedy of Cathy and Heathcliff’s unconsummated affection (which is itself discarded, since their romance is very much consummated in the film). It goes without saying that Fennell’s defence of this casting as being simply the version of Heathcliff that she imagined in her head is incredibly problematic when the book in fact takes the time to describe his (pointedly not-white) appearance. 

Moreover, at the risk of weighing into 200-year-old discourse, even the epithet of ‘inspired by the greatest love story of all time’ makes me think that Fennell did not fully grasp the source material. As the decision to cast Elordi demonstrates, as well as the inexplicable decision to give Isabella Linton a masochist kink, she was not interested in producing a film that retained any of Brontë’s nuanced portrayal of vicious cycles of generational abuse. What the film ultimately illustrates is that Fennell read the book with her eyes closed and her hand down her underwear. The uninspired casting and screenplay follow suit. 

I’m being incredibly harsh here and I recognise it. But if I’m disappointed with the film, it is not out of tribal loyalty to a dead author; it is because I mourn the thoughtful adaptation that could have been produced with Fennell’s budget. There were sections of the film that were exhilarating, landscapes that were beautifully depicted, and romantic tension that did feel buzzy, for lack of a better word. But the greatest tragedy of the film was the fact that these glimpses of hope were quickly replaced with something altogether less interesting. Having said that, my theatre was packed, and no doubt Fennell’s polemic creative choices help to drive people to the cinema. 

To return to Fey’s prophecy about the film, it doesn’t completely match the sensory nightmare of a period drama that Fennell ended up producing. If I were to be gracious, I would accept that almost two centuries after the novel’s release, society has sufficiently developed to allow her to insert some of the raw sexuality which the original could never be permitted to include. However, my instinct tells me that this kind of film should sound warning bells for a dire media-literacy crisis. I sincerely hope we can limit the number of films we market towards a specific set of 21st century readers and viewers who need to be spoon-fed sexy braindead drivel, in lieu of anything remotely thought-provoking. No disrespect meant to this group, but they have The Kissing Booth, can they not leave the classics alone? 

Fennell claims that the book was one of her favourites growing up. This justifies me in critiquing the film in relation to the novel which (apparently) served as a model. It also makes me hope that she didn’t read any other books as a child, that they might be spared her inane vision. However, given that Netflix are depicting Basil and Dorian as brothers in their upcoming adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and with no less than three Austen adaptations in the works for studios to decimate trying to appeal to the modern viewer, it might be time to resign as a cinephile and retreat into a library forever. 

‘Having sex with University Challenge on in the background’: The Sextigation 2026

Cherwell Features Section Editors
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‘Having sex with University Challenge on in the background’: The Sextigation 2026

CW: Unwanted sexual contact

Shagging, making love, doinking: there’s many names for it and many ways to do it. Here at Cherwell, we’ve made it our business to find out just exactly how, when, and with whom Oxford students get their freak on. Welcome all to the fifth annual Sextigation. Just like the boyfriend you need to get rid of, it’s a little late for Valentine’s Day.

How much and with whom?

A whopping 464 Oxford students responded to our form, giving us a nice sample of the (mostly) undergraduate body. It appears students here fit the stereotype of being more interested in books than each other bodies, all in all Oxford students aren’t very promiscuous. Whilst the mean average number of sexual partners since arriving at Oxford was four, this was mostly the effort of a few randy individuals. The most common answer was one and the median average was two. Last year we pointed out Oxford’s shag-inequality, and 2026 is much the same; the top 1% of Oxford’s students had 16% of all of the sex. Don’t tell Zack Polanski.

Perhaps more interesting than how much sex Oxford students are having is who they are having sex with. According to our polling, the number of gay/lesbian, bisexual and pan sexual Oxonians is greater than that of the straight students. Polling places estimates only 30% of Zoomers identify as LGBTQ; either this figure is way under or Cherwell has a particularly queer readership.

A W for Worcester

Worcester put in a good shift this year, proving to be the college with the highest average body count. They topped (wink wink) the ranking with a self-reported mean Oxford body count of 7.2. Credit where credit’s due though – this was mostly the work of one particularly industrious individual who reported an Oxford shag count of 92, the highest of all respondents. Lincoln and St John’s closely followed, getting hot and heavy with an average of 6.1 and 6 people, respectively. Less strong contenders included Regent’s Park and New, coming in joint second-last position with a mean of 2. It was Merton, though, that had the worst case of performance anxiety. They reported an average of 1.9 Oxford sexual partners, the lowest of all colleges that responded. This only confirmed pre-conceptions – Merton was voted by the most people as having the least sex. 

However, this was based on only self-reported hookups. Respondents also answered which colleges they had slept with. According to this metric, Balliol and Christ Church were the most promiscuous. 45 people reported hooking up with someone from these colleges, equating to 13.2% of all respondents. Jesus (12.6%) also had a steamy year and took second place on the podium. Keble and St John’s (both 12.3%) then followed. Across the road from St John’s, however, things weren’t quite so raunchy. Only one person reported getting with someone from Blackfriars Hall, officially making the PPH the most chaste of Oxford’s institutions Campion Hall and Wycliffe Hall weren’t far off this though, both having two reported hookups. We wonder why….

Sex or study?

History and Modern Languages appeared to have the highest body count average – 10.3 – but this was skewed by the small sample size. Excluding this, Geography students hiked up to the  summit, putting themselves on the map with a 7.9 average body count. It appears they were more focussed on getting frisky than on their fieldwork. Less dedicated to the cause was Human Sciences. They seem to have been more focused on the science than on the human. Our sources revealed that they have an average of 0.5 sexual partners at Oxford, officially making them the least horny course. 

Promiscuity, however, did not correlate to good looks. To be or not to be attractive was the question and English students did indeed come out on top. 22 people voted this subject as the one with the most eye candy. Humility though was not their strong suit; the majority of these respondents were themselves English students. At the other end of the spectrum, people were quite vehement in their responses; answers included ‘not physics’, ‘not PPE’, and ‘anything but engineering’.  

A tour of Oxford

We surveyed Oxford’s hot places as well as people too. No stone was left unturned, from Teddy Hall graveyard (a good place to bone, if you will) to the Mansfield theology library to the Oxford-Gatwick coach. An attempt on the back of a Voi was also reported. One person boasted an incredible roster. They confessed: “Behind the bins on Ship Street, train station, Glink, Worcester lake, Gloucester Green market, New College mound, All Souls chapel, Sheldonian cupola, Westgate, Maths Institute, Radcliffe Science Library, and my tutor’s office.” We’ll never look at these locations in the same way again. 

Someone else also reeled off their achievements. They reported: “I had a cheeky threesome with my best friend and her boyfriend, caused incest in my college family, and am currently sleeping with a 45-year-old.” Most other amusing stories revolved around sex playlists, such as one reporting being “treated to ‘The Combine Harvester (Brand New Key)’ during sex” and another describing “regularly hav[ing] sex with University Challenge in the background for ambience”. Only in Oxford.

How to hook up

In terms of how to find hookups, people were generally despondent. Oxford’s clubs didn’t prove so great for matchmaking: 36.2% answered that they “couldn’t say” which provided the best opportunities for casual sex while 10.8% bluntly answered “none”. Aside from this, Plush and then Bridge proved most popular for these purposes. Dating apps also got a bad rap. When asked if the apps had improved the dating experience, 42.5% voted “probably not” and 32.7% voted “definitely not”. People wrote that they are “superficial”, “soul draining” and, using a rather unusual simile, “like going to a pigsty to try to find a unicorn”. Overall, only 22.3% reported getting into an official relationship with someone they met on a dating site. Despite all this bad publicity,  70% of Oxford students still use dating apps to find sexual partners. 

For those who are in a relationship though, things are generally looking good – excluding the 13 people who admitted their relationship would only last until the end of term. The majority of people have sex with their partner multiple times a week (52.2%) and believe that their relationship will last all their life (55.8%). Over-achievers. This is a particular feat for the 55.4% of students whose main dating goal at Oxford is to find a lifelong monogamous partner. In fact, the future for our peers is looking fairly traditional: 72.4% want to get married and 57.8% want to have children someday.  

A pervasive problem

Cultural discourse in Oxford surrounding sex remains problematic. In response to the question of whether there is an issue with slut-shaming and judgement surrounding casual sex, the majority of Oxonians answered either “yes” or “maybe”. Many commented on the gendered nature of this shaming – of the “double-standard between men and women”, that “women tend to be scrutinised for dating multiple people but for men it’s not a big deal”, and how “crewdate culture can be more judgy about women”. Yet there also appears to be the inverse issue. 63.4% replied that they believe there is a pressure to not be a virgin at university. One person wrote about the pressure surrounding hook-up culture and how casual sex is used as social currency: “There can be a strangely competitive element to it, especially if your friends are regularly getting with people in clubs and you’re not.” Other issues within Oxford’s sex scene include those of consent. 85 respondents reported experiencing unwanted behaviour during sex, including slapping and strangulation. 80% of these identified as female. Also, 117 people reported having been pressured into sex. 

Until next year

Well that’s it folks, our annual, entirely rigorous, and Pulitzer-worthy deep dive into the sex lives of Oxford students is done for this year. It’s all just a bit of fun, so please don’t come at us with comments about sample size, P-values, or statistical significance; we took the same Q-Step class you did. Until next year, have fun, stay safe, and maybe keep it out of college.

Community raises objections to Wellington Square redevelopment plans

Angelina Mirraslavska
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Community raises objections to Wellington Square redevelopment plans

Oxford residents have voiced criticism of the proposed redevelopment of Wellington Square by Oxford University Development (OUD), a joint venture between the University of Oxford and asset management company Legal & General. Plans for the redevelopment have been submitted and are currently under consideration by Oxford City Council.

The project involves the demolition and redevelopment of 25 Wellington Square, a building which currently houses several independent businesses, to provide a new four-storey building for academic and office accommodation, alongside flexible commercial spaces on the ground floor. 

Last year, OUD conducted public consultation on the project. Feedback forms collected in February and March showed that 28% of respondents felt negatively towards the development, while other views were evenly split between neutral and positive at 20% each.

Objections raised at that stage focused on the significantly increased footprint of the proposed building, arguing that the overhanging design would intrude into Wellington Square, dominate Little Clarendon Street and reduce available pavement space. 

Proposed public spaces in the design were criticised as clinical and perceived as an extension of the university estate rather than an integrated part of the street. Concerns were also raised about the loss of on-street parking, particularly for residents with limited mobility and for local businesses reliant on deliveries and short-term customer parking. 

Further objections related to the anticipated three or more years of construction. Respondents registered concerns around the impact of traffic, noise, and disruption on Little Clarendon Street and surrounding homes, alongside wider unease about the cumulative impact of recent university development on Oxford as a city. 

Similar issues resurfaced following the submission of the redevelopment plan to the council in January. Councillor Susanna Préssel, who represents Jericho & Osney on the county council, has publicly objected to the plans. She stated: “We must have an active frontage in this important little street, with shops, social spaces and cafes. 

“Oxford University has already been allowed to destroy the beauty of Wellington Square by knocking down one of its four sides (many years ago). This was an act of shocking vandalism which the city council should never have allowed.” 

The planning application, published in January on the Oxford City Council website, invited public comment, prompting respondents to register general support or opposition. The application invited feedback on various features of the plan, including building height, parking and open space provision, and public transport accessibility. 

This consultation opportunity was promoted on Instagram by Common Ground, a social co-working café and community arts space which currently rents space at 25 Wellington Square. Common Ground has called for temporary premises during the redevelopment period, the opportunity to occupy a unit in the completed building, and meaningful consideration of community priorities within the new development.  

One individual who commented on the application raised concerns about the scale of the development and its impact on existing community facilities and local ecology. They stated: “The businesses and venues currently in the building at street level are of very high value to the Oxford community and represent some of the few popular and successful community spaces for people of all ages. To lose these, without guarantee of a new space or a place in the new development once opened, would be very tragic.”

A spokesperson for OUD told Cherwell: “The proposals will deliver significant community benefits, including new active uses and commercial space on Little Clarendon Street, which will help support local businesses and increase activity in the area. We remain committed to creating a scheme that contributes positively to the neighbourhood and provides long term benefits for residents, students and visitors.

“Public realm and streetscape improvements are a key feature of the application proposals, following the community feedback.This will include the use of a Construction and Environmental Management Plan, dust control measures, the Considerate Constructors Scheme, clear site hoarding, coordinated logistics planning and a commitment to regular communication with the neighbours.”

Remembrance, resilience, and reflection: Lubomyr Melnyk, the ‘continuous music’ pioneer

Ruaridh McEwen
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Remembrance, resilience, and reflection: Lubomyr Melnyk, the ‘continuous music’ pioneer

On the 23rd and 24th February, the Ukrainian composer and pianist, Lubomyr Melnyk, returns to Oxford for a performance at New College’s New Space, hosted by Balliol College Music Society. When Melnyk last performed in Oxford, in November 2025, audiences were left questioning what precisely they had just heard. A piano recital, certainly, but one that seemed to exceed the physical and sonic limits of the instrument itself. For Nathan Adlam, a Balliol mathematician and pianist who co-runs the society alongside Towa Matsuda, the concert marks the continuation of something far more personal than a visiting recital.

Melnyk’s performance carries a deep significance. It marks the four-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – a date etched into the memories of countless people. For Melnyk, the stage becomes more than a place of artistry; it becomes a space of remembrance, resilience, and reflection. The weight of the invasion’s anniversary makes the performance important, not only for Melnyk, but also for the millions of Ukrainians he is representing. The event is also widely supported by the Oxford University Ukrainian society, who were fundamental in advertising the last concert series in Michaelmas term.

Those who attended Melnyk’s Oxford recital last year will have struggled to describe the performance, feeling less like a conventional piano concert and more like a complete immersion. The rapid unbroken streams of sound makes it hard to locate a central melody, with the music instead surrounding the listener. In an intimate venue such as the New Space, that effect is likely to be intensified with the piano’s resonance filling the room and collapsing the distance between performer and listener. Raphael Darley, a maths student studying at Balliol who attended last November’s performance, described hearing “four voice lines, each having five textures.”

Adlam told Cherwell: “I found him by accident during the lockdown and was instantly hooked.” What began as private fascination developed into formal study; Melnyk has described Adlam as “the sole student to have taken him truly seriously”. Adlam single-handedly organised Melnyk’s Oxford debut last November, drawing on community support across the University to hear Melnyk’s signature ‘continuous music’.

Melnyk is often described as an ‘experimental’ composer, but the term misleads as much as it clarifies. His ‘continuous music’ style is built on rapid, sustained streams of notes that create the impression of layered textures unfolding simultaneously. Yet, as Nathan is keen to stress, it is deeply rooted in Western classical harmony. “He absolutely adores Bach and Beethoven,” Adlam explains. Rather than rupture with tradition, Melnyk’s work extends it, as a kind of operatic classicism. 

Much of the astonishment centres on the physical technique itself. Melnyk is recorded to be the fastest pianist in the world, with the ability to play an astonishing 19 notes per second. His style demands extraordinary stamina and speed, sustaining patterns at velocities that seem mechanically impossible. Even Adlam, who performs the repertoire as an amateur, is struck with disbelief. After Menlyk’s last recital at Magdalen College, he recalls a midwife remaining half an hour afterwards, “so terribly worried” for his hands; she could not believe he did not suffer from repetitive strain injury.

There is also a larger story unfolding behind the scenes. A documentary, led by filmmaker Rupert Clague, explores Melnyk’s music and life. The project, The Peace Piano, has reportedly secured Werner Herzog as executive producer. The performances this February also sit alongside a study from a research team from the University of Cambridge and Goldsmiths, University of London, which focuses on flow state. Attendees of the event are encouraged to complete the questionnaire which will investigate how live music leads to altered states of consciousness, framing Melnyk’s performance as more than just music, but as a psychological experience.

Melnyk’s return to Oxford represents more than just a repeat performance. His performance is significant to the memory of Ukraine on the anniversary of the Russian invasion, and it signals the growth of a small but intensely committed community around his work – one rooted, unexpectedly, in a Balliol maths student’s lockdown discovery.

‘Crawling with personality’: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ in conversation

Rebecca Harper
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‘Crawling with personality’: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ in conversation

Last week, I infiltrated a rehearsal for Cross Keys and 2046 Productions’ upcoming Little Shop Of Horrors. On arrival, I was informed that rehearsal had started at 9am that morning. It was now 11am, and there was no sign of flagging. There was a buzz to the atmosphere: perhaps the delirium of an early morning rehearsal (reader, I have been there). I got the overwhelming sense that this was the energy of a show where the cast and crew are having a great time, and that I should be very privileged to witness it.

Rehearsing for any student drama production, let alone a musical, can be an arduous process. You start early, with hardly any time throughout the day to do your already overdue essay, and any attempt to find new vocal warmups ending with a return to basics in ‘Mrs Tiggy-Wiggy’. But those involved in Little Shop certainly know how to keep things fun. Walking into their rehearsal, I was stopped in my tracks (quite literally, to avoid infiltrating a shot) by the show’s media manager Aimee Dixson, laughing her way through filming Instagram content with cast members Will Jacobs, Eliza Hogermeer, and Cameron Maiklem. Dixson has endless folders of inspiration Reels saved – those who follow the show’s Instagram will recognise her signature sharpness in the tongue-in-cheek content that has been posted to promote the show. The marketing is just the right side of meme-y. 

The show’s director, Madi Bouchta, had a day of rehearsals for Little Shop, next term’s Playhouse musical Our House, and a 5am bedtime after partaking in Oxbridge On Stage (she never stops!) – I resolved that it may be more ethical to catch up with her over text. What evolved was a Q&A as sharp as pruning shears – alongside assistant director Thushita Maheshkumar Sugunaraj, producer Cayden Ong, and music director Louis Benneyworth. 

Like any production worth watching, Little Shop’s team is crawling with personality. Ong  expresses his appreciation for all 58 ‘seedlings’ he appears to have amassed. The team share many an in-joke – special mention to the words ‘devoicing’ and ‘melodramatic chords’, as well as Wally McCabe’s (Audrey II) catchphrase of “and that’s beautiful”. I suppose I’ll have to see the show to figure out what they’re referring to. Louis, on a more serious note, mentions the atmosphere they’ve created in the room: “What has evolved is a sense of care, respect, and love in every rehearsal.”

This is a version of Little Shop unlike anything which has previously graced Oxford’s creaky stages. Whilst the crew (and myself) express their love for the ‘See-Maw’-ing of Ellen Page’s original Audrey, she will not be making an appearance here. Goodbye to the awful blonde wig; hello to a more grounded portrayal. Bouchta sums this up perfectly: “It’s Little Shop but not entirely as you know it.” The director highlighted that she “wanted to bring out the humanity of the show”. Maheshkumar Sugunaraj adds that they have been “exploring so many nuances in relationships,” with a particular focus on the difference between Audrey’s interactions with Orin and Seymour. 

There is also a clear love of the show and its history among the team. Bouchta’s love started when she watched the NPR Tiny Desk concert of the recent Off-Broadway revival. She adds that she “became obsessed with Christian Borle”, a rite of passage, I believe. The music was an incredibly strong draw too; love for the musical’s songs were mentioned in every single conversation I had with the team. There are no duds in Little Shop, and musical director Louis Benneyworth is certainly doing the score justice. He teases some reshuffling and additions to the original orchestration, and says that Oxford “will never hear a puppet sound this spectacular again.” 

On that note – one of my questions for Cross Keys was merely “Puppet?” I was met with a fitting answer: “Puppet!” Fear not, for despite some reworking, much of the campery in the original stage version has been retained. In a script that necessitates a nitrous-oxide-emitting space helmet and a giant man-eating plant puppet, how could it not? Bouchta keeps many of the puppetry details under wraps, but credits designer Kat Surgay with a mammoth feat: making four different puppets. She adds: “Large scale puppetry is something that isn’t seen a lot in Oxford student shows, so we’re very excited.” 

That word comes up again and again in my conversations with the cast and crew. Excited. Excited. Excited. Little Shop have assembled a team of artists who clearly love what they do – and they reckon you’ll love it too. Or at least… it will grow on you.

Little Shop Of Horrors runs from 18th-21st February at the O’Reilly Theatre, Keble College. 

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