Thursday 12th February 2026
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Kilts, Ceilidhs and Calling: Inside the World of Oxford Reeling

Nancy Robson
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Kilts, Ceilidhs and Calling: Inside the World of Oxford Reeling

It’s Thursday night in New College’s Long Room, and several dozen students are desperately trying to master ‘Speed the Plough’, which, for the uninitiated, is a mind boggling routine of side-steps, spins and shuffles. With its roughly hewn stone walls and exposed beams, the Long Room has a certain Braveheart charm to it, which feels entirely appropriate for the evening. It resounds with confused chattering and laughter until, as the opening notes of the melody crackle from a speaker, the dancers together gather into their lines, and take each other by the hand.

If this sounds a far cry from your Thursday evenings, then you’ve probably never come across Oxford University’s Caledonian Society, who are responsible for Oxford’s termly Highland Ball, the main event of which – as you might have guessed – is Reeling.

Popularised in the 18th century by Scottish Lairds, Reeling is somewhere between English country and French line dancing, except set to Highland music (think fiddles, pipes and accordions). With a core repertoire of around eleven different dances, it is a more formal, rehearsed cousin of the Ceilidh.

Not that any of this is on my mind as I’m whirled around the Long Room. With all the counting beats and desperately trying to recall the next steps, Reeling doesn’t leave a lot of time for contemplation. This, my partner for the evening tells me, is partly why he comes. He’s five hundred words into an essay and hopes that the endorphins from all this dancing will power him through to the end of it. He then steps on my toes, but I’ll forgive him that.

By the end of the rehearsal, I’m absolutely knackered and, judging by the red-cheeked, sweat-sheened faces around me, I’m not alone in this. Yet even the absolute beginners – those who had never stepped foot near a ceilidh before tonight – seem exhilarated, some of them staying behind to finesse the steps, while the more veteran dancers practice flinging each other in the air. As I look around, essay deadlines, tutorials and the Damoclean sword of marked collections feel like they’re a world away.

If this is starting to sound a little cultish, I can promise you it isn’t. Addictive might be the better word. When I ask how they started Ceilidh dancing, a few of the students I chat to mention the Burns Nights held by their colleges – chaotic practices in the JCR, the bizarre sight of a college chaplain blessing the haggis, and some very tipsy Reeling. This makes a lot of sense to me, because there’s something a little Bridgerton in the magic of  whirling around a grand, old Hall, with dance cards and flouncy dresses to boot.

Yet this glamour is a long way from my first encounters with Scottish country dancing, which took place in an unbelievably stuffy basement in South London. By the end of the night, the room would reach almost  tropical levels of humidity, so that, for my nine year old self, Ceilidh meant descending into a hellish, slightly pagan underworld.

But regardless of whether it takes place in a stained-glass hall or a cellar, in black tie or trainers, the magic of this dancing remains the same to me. To clarify, I have a non-existent sense of rhythm, two left feet, and a mortal fear of dancing in public (that is, unless copious amounts of alcohol have been consumed). But at a Reel, none of this matters. For one, because no one is looking at you, or at least at you as an individual; the beauty of the dances comes from the unison, the synchronicity, the efforts of the collective.

Unlike so much at this university, this is a place where mediocrity can flourish. If the steps are right, and the enthusiasm is there, then your actual competence is somewhat secondary (or at least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself). If you are willing to spin, or be spun, then you’re welcomed in, taught how to perform a figure of eight, and thrown straight into a dance.  Although I can’t stress enough how much fun it is, and how pleasant a change from the library, I think that it is this acceptance of amateurism that I’ve come to value most. In Oxford, after all, it can often feel like your best is never good enough, that you are striving for an ideal of perfection – not only in your academics, but also in your social life, and in the balance between the two – which is just not humanely possible (especially if you ever want to sleep). And while it is wonderful to be surrounded by so many passionate, talented people, it is also nice to be reminded that you can pursue something not because you want to play for the Blues, or add it to your LinkedIn, or devote your life to it, but because you simply  enjoy it. Add to that some endorphins, a lot of exercise, and the promise of a ball at the end, and your Thursday evening is sorted.

Oxford SU election candidates lay out their platforms as voting opens

Mercedes Haas, Archie Johnston, and Ned Remington
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Oxford SU election candidates lay out their platforms as voting opens

Voting in the Oxford University Students’ Union (OUSU) elections opens today and will close this Thursday. Cherwell reached out to the students running for election to hear their plans for the organisation.

OUSU is led by four full-time, paid Sabbatical Officers, alongside a range of part-time, voluntary officers and Student Trustees. Sabbatical Officers are the primary representatives of Oxford’s student body. 

The Sabbatical Officer roles are President for Undergraduates, President for Postgraduates, President for Communities and Common Rooms, and President for Welfare, Equity, and Inclusion. This will be the first set of elections for the four Presidential roles, and successful candidates will begin their terms this July.  Last year, the four positions were elected as Officers, and were later renamed ‘President’ to reflect the responsibility the roles carry.

This was not the first reshuffle to OUSU’s structure in recent years. In 2023, the portfolios of the five Sabbatical Officers existing at the time were changed, for example replacing the Officer for Women with one for Liberation and Equality. 

In Hilary Term 2024, OUSU was hit with a wave of controversies. The elections held in week five saw accusations that some candidates had been working together in a “secret slate”, despite rules against this. As reported by Cherwell at the time, Corpus Christi College disaffiliated in protest. The SU’s Trustee Board, responsible for the internal affairs of the organisation, blocked three motions of no confidence in the student council, which has since been replaced by the Conference of Common Rooms.

Accordingly, OUSU announced a “Turnaround Plan”, later rebranded as a “Transformation”, which saw much of the organisation effectively shut down during the 2024-2025 academic year. After President Dr Addi Haran resigned in protest against “institutional malpractice”, the Trustee Board abolished the role of President, producing the structure of four Presidents now in use.

President for Undergraduates 

The President for Undergraduates is responsible for representing undergraduate interests in University governance. The two candidates running for the role are Zagham Farhan and Digby Gough-Boyak. 

Farhan, a third-year History and Politics student at University College, told Cherwell that his goals for the presidency include having an “external review of the University’s sexual misconduct processes”, “creating a website to view how busy libraries are”, and “creating a student societies hub”. 


Gough-Boyack, an Archaeology and Anthropology finalist at Hertford College, says that if he is elected, he will “improve engagement with both the SU and the Conference of Common Rooms through collaboration and communication”. He told Cherwell: “Through clear representation, the SU can establish a mandate with which to deliver meaningful change at a university-wide level.” 

President for Postgraduates

There are four candidates running for the position of President for Postgraduates: Wantoe Teah Wantoe, India Kelly, David Quan, and Mergen Dorjnamjil. The role is analogous to the President for Undergraduates, sitting on University governance committees to represent the interests of graduate students.

Wantoe is the current office-holder, who took office last year after completing an MSc in Comparative and International Education at Somerville College. Wantoe told Cherwell that his campaign is focused on “continuity, experience, and finishing work that is already delivering for postgraduates.” He encouraged students to stay engaged with OUSU, saying: “Oxford Students’ Union can deliver when it is focused on substance rather than slogans.“

Kelly is an MSc Archaeology student at Kellogg College. She told Cherwell: “I want to be President for Postgraduates in the Oxford University Student Union because I know that postgraduates who are in short (year-long or less) courses feel as though they don’t have a say in the University.” 

Her main goal as president is “to increase outreach to graduate students” and to add “OSU [sic] student advice pages, creating resources to reacclimate non-traditional student’s [sic] that have joined from the workforce, and, of course, advocating for as many students as possible”.

Quan is an MSc Education student at Wolfson College, and his goal is to create “one community – undergrads, postgrads, alumni, staff, and locals together”, adding that this involves “transparent access to hardship funding, a food bank for those in need… and AI literacy”. He believes that the “SU has enormous potential to be the hub students actually turn to – for practical support, for connection”.

Dorjnamjil is studying for an MSc in Clinical Embryology. She wants to be President for Postgraduates because she believes that “the Students’ Union should be focused on making postgraduate life easier to settle into and easier to live, rather than making it more complicated”. Among her goals for her presidency, she mentioned making “funding, financial support, and scholarships more accessible”, supporting “postgraduates at different stages of life”, and representing “all postgraduate students across all fields rather than being shaped by only a political performative mindset”. 

President for Welfare, Equity, and Inclusion 

The candidates for President for Welfare, Equity, and Inclusion are Catherine Kola-Balogun, Henry Morris, Khansa Maria, and Fitzroy “Pablo” Wickham. The role includes advocating for students from underrepresented backgrounds by voicing their experiences of studying, both within the institution and beyond it. 

Kola-Balogun is a third-year undergraduate student studying History and Politics at St. Hilda’s College, who has previously served as her college’s JCR Access Officer and undergraduate outreach ambassador. The goals of her presidency include “creating scaffolding for support” particularly for neurodivergent students, “cultivating stronger community”, and “more visibility and connection” between the SU and JCRs. She advocates a standardised university policy on rustication and more collaboration with external organisations on sexual harassment reporting.

Morris is studying for an MSt in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. In the past, they were involved with the Class Act Society and setting up the free subfusc scheme. Morris told Cherwell that some of the goals of their presidency are to “launch an investigation into the ways sexual misconduct is handled at the University”, “provide free food support”, and to “support suspended students”. 

Maria is pursuing a DPhil in Education. She told Cherwell: “I want to be President for Postgraduates because I see how easily postgraduate concerns are absorbed into broader conversations and then lost.” Regarding her goals for the presidency, she listed wanting to “strengthen how postgraduate concerns are gathered and tracked”, the need to “improve accessibility and communication”, and wanting “postgraduate voices [to be] embedded earlier in decision making”. 

Wickham is a final-year DPhil student in Clinical Neuroscience, and throughout his time at Oxford he has “served in several pastoral care roles, including Peer Supporter and Welfare Officer at New College”. Wickham told Cherwell: “I strongly believe in data-driven advocacy; without it, leadership risks prioritising personal agendas over the real needs of the student body.”

President for Communities, and Common Rooms


There is one candidate running for President for Communities and Common Rooms, Roxi Rusu, who is a PPE finalist. The role entails representing students on University committees, leading SU projects, supporting Common Rooms, and acting as a link between colleges, societies, and the Students’ Union.

College Common Rooms are represented at the SU through the Conference of Common Rooms, at which JCR and MCR representatives vote on issues concerning the student body. The body has faced difficulty with a lack of student engagement. Out of the four CCR meetings held in 2025, two failed to attract enough delegates to have any motion reach the quorum required to pass.

Rusu told Cherwell: “I see the CCR President like a ribbon: connecting, not controlling, all the independently thriving communities in the University. I see this role as reinforcing the features that make societies and common rooms unique, while actively working to minimise their inequalities. Colleges should differ in flavour, not quality.” 

Some of her goals include “bringing back the Yellow Pages”, “creating a Uni-wide Calendar” and “emphas[ing] the power of Conference of Common Rooms”.

Other roles

Also up for election are a variety of voluntary officer roles. The majority of these are designed to represent particular marginalised groups, or groups occupying a distinctive role in the student body, like international or suspended students. There is also an Environmental Officer, a Societies Officer, and a RAG (Raise and Give) Officer, who will manage RAG, the arm of the SU set up to raise money for various charities. 

The other role up for election is a voluntary Student Trustee, who will represent student interests on OUSU’s Trustee Board, which governs the internal affairs of the organisation. The board consists of the four Sabbatical Officers, four Student Trustees, and four “external”, non-student trustees.

‘That’s so futch’: Oxford’s queer football club

Natalie Tan
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‘That’s so futch’: Oxford’s queer football club

Pitch Futchball to me in three words. “Silly, friendly, and proud,” Sadie Russell, a second-year English student at St Catz, says, after some thought. 

“Family, welcoming, and relaxed,” Jesse Katz Roberts, a second-year History student at LMH, offers. 

Russell and Katz Roberts are two of the minds behind Futchball FC, Oxford’s queer football club founded in Trinity 2025. “We were just literally in the pub,” Russell tells me. “We wanted to have a way of hanging out with a group of our queer friends regularly, and I had a friend at another university in Glasgow who was part of a very queer football team. So we made the [Futchball] account and put a post out and asked our friends we knew to come, and then just hoped it would get bigger.”

And it has – though it began as just that, a small group of friends, Futchball now has more than 80 members on its group chat, and a core group of about 15 to 30 who show up to the Union Street Astroturf every week. (“Thank God for Sadie’s entrepreneurial spirit”, Katz Roberts interjects.) In fact, most of the attendees are absolute beginners. “There’s no pressure or stress”, Russell says. “We’re just there to have a good time and to be silly.”

Despite the complete lack of seriousness on the pitch – or perhaps precisely because of it – both Russell and Katz Roberts are aware of how important the grassroots community they’ve created is. At Oxford, sporting societies can fall victim to a hypercompetitive culture and be alienating to newcomers: “I wanted to make a space that wasn’t one where ‘you have to be good or you shouldn’t be on the team’.”

“It all just felt quite serious,” Katz Roberts adds. “I remember playing football in school or with my family, and it was very, very competitive.” 

For queer people in particular, the homophobia entrenched in sports at almost all levels often colours their experiences with sports for the worse; in 2024, Stonewall UK found that 1 in 5 LGBTQ+ people experienced discrimination in a sports setting. Football especially is home to damning levels of LGBTQ+ discrimination. Kick It Out, a UK charity which aims to tackle all forms of discrimination across all levels of football, recorded double the reports of transphobic abuse in the 2024/25 season compared to the season before. 

Most queer societies in Oxford lean more artistic – think Kolour Theory or The Green Carnations – but a queer sports club provides a different kind of environment, one that challenges and reclaims a traditionally hostile and hypermasculine space. “First off, everyone’s not afraid to look stupid, and that’s the energy which makes it different from a magazine or a club night. But more importantly, I wanted to be able to say to people: if you’ve hated football before, [Futchball] would be different. Some people, especially gay men who have had really bad experiences with the aggressively male culture in sports, have been like ‘Yeah, Futchball’s really nice, because I’ve gotten to play a game that I really enjoy, but it’s not got the baggage it usually does’,” Russell explains. 

What began as – and still is – a chill kickabout between friends has been embraced by the local community. Last term, Oxford’s very own LGBT+ nightclub, Plush, chose Futchball as its local cause to sponsor, ultimately raising a total of £921, which Russell and Katz Roberts have been using to pay for weekly pitch rentals, kits, and trips abroad for friendly matches with other queer football teams. “They’ve been really amazing to work with, and they’re so supportive of us,” Russell says. 

Fundraising efforts like those are becoming more valuable as Futchball expands: it’s completely free to attend every week, and will remain so if Russell and Katz Roberts have anything to say about it. I float the prospect of one day registering Futchball as a university society to secure funding, and am thoroughly unsurprised when they both make sounds of disagreement. “I’m quite anti-becoming an official uni society, partly because of all the bureaucracy involved, but mostly because I want anyone from Oxford to feel like they can come, even if they’re not from the uni”, Russell explains. According to the university’s Sports Federation Hub, sports clubs registered with the university are only allowed to have 20% of their total membership be Oxford Brookes students, and another 20% be non-University members. “We’re only able to be like this because it’s a very grassroots bunch.” 

“[Futchball] is literally the thing I’m proudest of in my time at Oxford,” Russell says, laughing. Both second-years, Futchball’s leaders worry who they’ll pass this community down to: as much as Futchball is a collective effort, it also needs a few dedicated people to manage the administrative and logistical duties of ensuring it stays afloat. “Hopefully Futchball and its community will be our legacy,” Katz Roberts says. 

The surprising ease with which Futchball has taken off has shown both Russell and Katz Roberts that the appetite for alternative spaces like these is stronger than expected. “More people should start queer sports clubs,” Russell suggests. “I’ve heard talk of a rugby version; there is a demand for rugby that’s less straight and male. And people are more up for stuff than you realise.”

Katz Roberts gives me a perfect one-liner to end our chat: “If you love football, but you hate the environment, come to Futchball.”

Sheldonian Series panel discusses the power and limits of activism

Mercedes Haas
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Sheldonian Series panel discusses the power and limits of activism

A panel discussion on activism took place at the Sheldonian Theatre last Wednesday as part of the University of Oxford’s Sheldonian Series, prompting debate on the effectiveness, ethics, and democratic role of activism.

The event, titled ‘The Power of Activism’, formed part of the series’ Hilary term focus on the theme of ‘Power’ and was moderated by Dr Julius Grower, Associate Professor of Law at Oxford. Panellists included Shermar Pryce, the Oxford University Student Union (OUSU) President (Communities and Common Rooms); Professor Federica Genovese, Professor of Political Science and International Relations; Munira Mirza, Chief Executive of Civic Future; and climate justice activist Dominique Palmer. Baroness Shami Chakrabarti CBE contributed via pre-recorded remarks.

Opening the evening, Vice-Chancellor Professor Irene Tracey said: “In our world, there is no shortage of issues to be passionate about”, emphasising the relevance of activism in contemporary political life.

The first audience question asked panellists to provide examples of where activism had been successful. Pryce referred to the work of Fair Share during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Genovese highlighted global fossil fuel divestment, stating that “16,000 institutions” had stopped investing in fossil fuels, resulting in losses of “about $40 trillion”. Palmer cited the Stop Rosebank campaign, while Mirza pointed to recent farmers’ protests, including demonstrations in Oxford.

Discussion then turned to examples of activism perceived as unsuccessful. Pryce cited the 2003 Stop the War protests against the Iraq War, arguing that they failed because they did not “change the incentives of institutions”. Palmer questioned whether failure in activism could be clearly defined, while Mirza reflected on her early involvement in activism and argued that some forms of disruptive climate activism risk alienating the public. Genovese added that measuring success is difficult because it is often unclear which outcomes most people want.

Baroness Chakrabarti offered a broad definition of activism as “any form of political expression”, while noting that the term can sometimes carry negative connotations. Mirza stressed that activism is not always progressive or left-wing, citing the British National Party as an example, and argued that it is important to distinguish between activism grounded in persuasion and activism grounded in coercion.

An audience question later raised whether disruptive protests could be justified, citing farmers’ demonstrations. Mirza responded that such protests had been organised and permitted by the police, while Pryce noted that movements such as the suffragettes were also criticised in their time. 

Genovese shifted the discussion to activism in democratic versus non-democratic contexts, arguing that “democracies work best with incremental changes” and citing Brexit as an example of a rapid political shift that democratic systems struggled to absorb.

Toward the end of the event, an audience member interrupted to ask why Palestine Action had not been discussed, particularly in light of its designation as a terrorist organisation. The moderator stated that the question would be returned to later; however, although two further audience questions were taken, the issue was not subsequently addressed by the panellists.

Despite this, the University described the event as “a stimulating evening of discussion” with an engaged audience. Dr Grower described the panel as “a brilliant demonstration of what Oxford does best”, emphasising the role of universities in facilitating debate on contentious issues.

The Sheldonian Series is open to the public and aims to promote freedom of speech and inclusive inquiry. The final event of the academic year, focusing on the ‘Power of Satire’, will take place in Trinity term.

Oxford Cultural Leaders programme celebrates 10th anniversary

Angela Yu
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Oxford Cultural Leaders programme celebrates 10th anniversary

The tenth anniversary course of the Oxford Cultural Leaders programme, a leadership coaching service operated by the University of Oxford’s Gardens, Libraries & Museums (GLAM) division, in partnership with Saïd Business School, concluded in late January. During its ten years, the internationally acclaimed leadership programme has coached more than 250 senior figures in the arts, museums and heritage sectors across the world.

This year’s anniversary course drew together 24 leaders from cultural organisations in Oxfordshire for the first time after a competitive application process. During its six days, it combined workshops, discussions, reflective exercises and case study based learning. Drawing on expertise from the Saïd Business School and the University’s cultural institutions, to support participants to develop confidence in their leadership and strengthen their strategic thinking.

This Oxfordshire programme focused on applying this framework to local pressures affecting cultural organisations in the county. Amongst the participants, half were selected from GLAM and the remaining came from organisations such as the Story Museum, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford Opera, Justice in Motion, the Bodleian Libraries, and Oxford Playhouse. 

The aim of the programme, Alex Amey, OCL’s Administration & Marketing Officer told Cherwell, was to: “help to strengthen the leadership within the county’s cultural sector and create a network of professionals to identify shared issues within the county.”

The final day featured a ‘Mythodrama’ workshop, hosted at the Oxford Playhouse. It used Shakespeare’s Henry V as a cultural medium to explore leadership archetypes and approaches to emotional intelligence.

Abigail Brown, arts officer at Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire District Councils, said: “[It] has been an inspiring and affirming experience. The course content was thoughtful and led by inspirational experts, and the connections made across Oxford’s cultural community were genuinely heart-warming and uplifting.”

Professor Christopher Morton, acting director of the Pitt Rivers Museum, stated: “The insights gained and connections made will continue to inform my work well beyond the programme.”

Environment Agency allocates over £8 million contract to clear illegal Kidlington waste dump

Daniela Braw-Smith
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Environment Agency allocates over £8 million contract to clear illegal Kidlington waste dump

The UK’s Environment Agency (EA) has awarded an £8 million contract to Yorkshire firm Acumen Waste to clear an over 20,000 tonne waste pile in Kidlington, citing pressing concerns over fire safety. 

The waste pile, located in between the River Cherwell and the A34, is one of at least 517 illegal dumps across England, which police say are run by organised gangs, offering landfill services at much cheaper rates than legitimate operators. The waste was dumped on multiple occasions between June and October last year. Three men have been arrested in relation to the incident, on suspicion of both environmental and money-laundering offences.

The cost of the clean-up has concerned local communities, with the residents of the constituency of Bicester and Woodstock submitting a petition to Parliament declaring the economic burden should not be met through council tax. 

A spokesperson for the EA told Cherwell: “The Environment Agency believes those responsible for dumping waste should pay for its clearance. We took the exceptional decision to begin removal after advice from Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service about the possibility of a fire on the site that could have a widespread effect on the community, including closing the A34, raising air quality issues from smoke, and interrupting electrical supplies.”

 Its national environmental crime unit has said the agency would look to recoup the clearance costs via the Proceeds of Crime Act from anyone successfully prosecuted in the investigation.

The EA’s direct involvement in this case is unusual, as it is not legally responsible for clearing illegal waste. However, the spokesperson told Cherwell: “While the Environment Agency continues to support the principle that the criminals responsible should cover the cost of clearance, it retains the power to act in wholly exceptional circumstances.” 

Mary Creagh, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, explained that “the scale of this fire risk presents an overriding public imperative”. However, the EA spokesperson told Cherwell that “a potential start date towards the end of February is looking unlikely now” due to site and weather conditions.

The 140 meter long and 6 meter high mound, located on a floodplain, poses various environmental risks to residents of north Oxfordshire and beyond. The pile is composed of processed domestic waste, shredded plastics, polystyrene, tyres and other household items. In their petition to Parliament, local residents noted that rising river levels could lead to contaminated waste entering the river and surrounding soil.

The EA has taken steps to mitigate the risk of waste entering the River Cherwell, installing barriers around the site and monitoring water quality. These efforts have found no indication of pollution entering the Cherwell so far due to the waste. The agency has also removed several damaged trees in order to access the site, promising to plant two trees for every one cut down.

Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds has said that the government is committed to eradicating these types of environmental crimes by increasing funds to tackle waste crime, hiring more officers, and introducing tougher penalties for offenders.

Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Under-Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has also pledged greater government efforts in prevention and disruption, particularly through the introduction of digital waste tracking to help fight waste crime. Speaking in the House of Lords,  Hayman said: “It is important to say quite clearly that the government do not believe that the status quo is working.” 

Acumen Waste were approached for comment.

University overhauls undergraduate admissions examination requirements for 2027 entry

Siyeon Lee
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University overhauls undergraduate admissions examination requirements for 2027 entry

The University of Oxford has announced that it will discontinue Oxford-specific admissions examinations for the 2027 entry cycle. 

Instead, Oxford admissions exams will now be administered by University Admissions Test UK (UAT-UK), a not-for-profit organisation formed as a joint venture between Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge. According to the UAT-UK, the University will use its admissions tests for “at least the next three years”.

Under the new system, UAT-UK admissions examinations will be required for 16 of the University’s undergraduate courses, with admission examination requirements removed for the remaining courses.

Regarding the change, a University spokesperson told Cherwell: “Oxford’s undergraduate admissions process is rigorous and designed to identify academic potential. The University is continually reviewing its admissions processes and practices to ensure they best meet the needs of the University, schools, and applicants. Our approach varies according to subject and considers a range of information as evidence of a candidate’s ability to thrive here.” 

The spokesperson added that the change “will streamline the admissions process for schools and our applicants, allowing candidates to take one test that is accepted by a number of other UK universities”. Seven UK universities currently utilise UAT-UK’s examinations, including the London School of Economics, the University of Cambridge, and Imperial College London. 

Admissions tests were negatively impacted by technical difficulties in 2024. Students taking the History Admissions Test (HAT) experienced a two-hour delay. In the 2024-25 academic year, the University proposed to stop subsidising admissions test fees. In May last year, Conference of Common Rooms (CCR), the representative body of Oxford SU, passed a motion criticising the proposal on the basis that it might “exacerbate college disparities and disincentivise open offers”. 

In the 2026-entry admissions cycle, a variety of discipline-specific exams, such as the Ancient History and Classical Archaeology Admissions Test (AHCAAT) or the Mathematics Admissions Test (MAT), were booked through the Oxford Admissions Test Registration Portal and assessed at a Pearson VUE testing site. 

While UAT-UK examinations will also be delivered through Pearson VUE, a private admissions testing service, UAT-UK currently offers three of its own examinations: the Engineering and Science Admissions Test (ESAT), Test of Academic Reasoning for Admissions (TARA), and the Test for Mathematics for University Admissions (TMUA). 

The admission examination for medicine will continue to use Pearson’s University Clinical Aptitude Test (UCAT), and the law examination will continue to use Pearson’s National Admissions Test for Law (LNAT).

The mysterious posters in Oxford, and the novel behind them

Charlotte Stuart
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The mysterious posters in Oxford, and the novel behind them

It was the third time I’d walked past the Rad Cam noticeboard before I finally stopped. I had assumed it was just another poster, lost in the usual blur of student plays, society termcards, and talks promising free pizza. But this one was oddly specific. It advertised a Hamlet performance staged in 2011 at a venue called “The Echo Chamber”. The font was formal, the layout carefully designed – it all felt familiar enough to pass at a glance. Yet at the bottom were the elaborate crests of “Creech College” and the “University of Kingswell”. Neither of them rang a bell.

A few days later I spotted another at the Old Bod, wedged between notices about library rules and history databases. This time it advertised a conference on “The Air Battle of Pearl Harbor at 70: New Archival Discoveries,” held in 2011 at “Casaubon College” – part of the University of Kingswell. A quick Google search confirmed that none of these places existed.

The same week, I found myself staring at one of the large plywood boards along Catte Street, trying to make sense of it. It announced – in serifed capitals with a Latin feel – “A classical ritual in the Greco-Roman tradition celebrating the late Sir Francis Bowell, holder of the Mould Chair of Greek at the College of Casaubon” in 2011. A coda specified: “The ceremony will include a sacrifice and libations.”

Intrigued, I began asking around – had anyone else seen the Kingswell posters? At first, no one had. Yet once my friends noticed one, they seemed to appear everywhere. All of the posters had something else in common: a QR code printed at the bottom, leading to a sparse Linktree page. It contained neither names nor explanations, simply a downloadable PDF titled Dust on Marble.

It turned out to contain the opening chapters of an anonymous satirical novel set in 2011 in an Oxford-like university town, complete with exaggerated traditions, obscure societies, and a narrator with a sharp eye for class divides and academic absurdities. The writing was surprisingly polished – more deliberate than one would expect from a casual student prank – which only added to the peculiarity.

The website offered the option to subscribe to a newsletter. Expecting little more than a confirmation email, I signed up. Over the following weeks, I received short messages with cryptic updates about the project, such as “Oscar Wilde has acquired the cockerel. Wigs are encouraged in the evening”. They were signed by the “Sovereign Sesquipedalian Fissiparous Order of Saint Gwinnodock of Bethlehem, of Sparta, and of Atlantis”.

At first I assumed it must be a group of students, perhaps an art project or an elaborate in-joke, but the longer it went on, the less certain I became. There were no society references, no Instagram accounts, and no familiar names circulating. It all felt less like a prank and more like a carefully constructed world that had quietly appeared in the middle of Oxford. The more I read, the more the posters began to feel like part of the story itself – the fictional colleges and libation ritual featured in the novel, as though the city had been folded into the fiction.

One morning, I woke up to a subscription email mentioning that a “reading” of the latest chapter was taking place “all day” at “Vaclav Havel’s bench” in Uni Parks. It wasn’t framed as an event – there was no specific time and no invitation to meet anyone. Yet the location was real. It was an art installation devoted to the memory of the Czech human rights advocate, easily found on Google Maps.

When I decided that curiosity was more important than deadlines and went to investigate, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Online images suggested a small, round table built around a tree, flanked by a couple of elaborate chairs. It felt strangely natural to find about a dozen carefully designed booklets lying in a neat pile. Their shiny covers resembled marble, and the title was printed as if formed from dark, scattered dust. On the second page, a sentence read: “This edition is limited to 250 numbered copies.”

I sat down and skimmed through the new chapters, enjoying the rare sunshine. It turned out I was not the only one intrigued. During the hour or so that I spent there, three students showed up who were following the same trail. Two had also seen the posters, and one had received a printed copy in an anonymous envelope left in their pigeonhole, with no further message. We briefly talked about our puzzlement, each of us quietly wondering whether any of the others might be the author.

No newsletter updates followed until a digital version of the new chapters was sent on Christmas Eve. Since then, emails have fallen silent, and the posters have been removed. To my knowledge, only two plywood boards remain, both on Catte Street – one by the University Church and one by the Old Bod. 

If the goal was notoriety, the attempt has failed. The only result returned by Google is a puzzled Oxfess post from October. But part of what makes the whole episode so alluring is how naturally it fits into Oxford life. This is a city that thrives on stories – on whispered traditions, obscure societies, and half-true legends passed down between generations of students. From secret dining clubs to elaborate pranks that become part of college lore, Oxford has long blurred the line between institutional seriousness and playful myth-making.

The Kingswell posters felt like a modern extension of that tradition. They didn’t announce themselves as art or performance. They simply existed – quietly strange, half-believable, and left for students to interpret. In a university defined by names, titles, and achievements, the idea of a creator choosing to remain invisible feels almost rebellious. The mystery becomes part of the work itself. It also speaks to a certain hunger for novelty within the routines of academic life. Between lectures, essays, and problem sets, it’s easy for days to blur into one another. The sudden appearance of something unexplained offers a small disruption, a moment of intrigue in an otherwise predictable landscape.

The content of Dust on Marble mirrors this fascination with hidden worlds. Its exaggerated societies, ceremonial rituals, and obsessive hierarchies feel like satirical versions of the very myths Oxford students joke about. 

Sometimes I have to go through the photos I took of the posters, or touch the booklet, just to reassure myself it wasn’t all a feverish dream. When clarity returns, I am left wondering whether this mystery exists only for the present moment – asking nothing of its audience except fleeting curiosity – or whether it is part of something more intricate, with a hidden purpose still to be revealed. Only time will tell.

Musical theatre and classic literature: A marriage of two minds?

Eva Westenberger
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Musical theatre and classic literature: A marriage of two minds?

Sometimes, great works of art emerge from surprising sources. Consider the celebrated teen rom-com Ten Things I Hate About You (1999), loosely based on Shakespeare’s 1590 play The Taming of the Shrew. While Katherina’s transformation into smart-mouthed American teenager Kat Stratford may read to literary purists as a ‘dumbing-down’ of the original source material, the film is memorable and packs a punch with its larger-than-life characters and unlikely love story, claiming a cultural legacy of the sort similarly enjoyed by Shakespeare’s play itself. 

From the initial inspiration to its creation, art’s journey to conception is often no less predictable than the artwork itself. Nowhere is this clearer than in the exuberant and diverse world of musical theatre, which seems an art form uniquely able to set almost anything to song and dance. The writing of a musical, as with the creation of all art, calls for the spark of inspiration, for which the kindling has often been found in classic literature. Take, for example, the recent sensation of The Great Gatsby, based upon F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous 1925 tragic novel of the same name, which has dazzled audiences both in London and New York. What, therefore, are the ingredients for a perfect literary-to-musical adaptation? In considering two of my favourite musicals, let’s chart how speech becomes script, how characters become embodied, and how emotion becomes song.

Les Misérables: An on-stage revolution  

I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing Les Mis on the West End for the first time on my twelfth birthday; before this point my exposure to musicals had consisted solely of frequently re-watching the films The Sound of Music, West Side Story, and Annie. The first stirring notes of the ‘Prologue/Look Down’ were captivating, and ‘One Day More’ was a personal moment of musical rapture at the end of Act I. 

First performed in 1985, it has become one of the most beloved and well-known musicals globally. Based upon Victor Hugo’s 1862 novel, it follows French peasant Jean Valjean’s efforts to reinvent his life after 19 years in prison, set against the backdrop of the 1832 Paris Uprising. Hugo’s novel is a long, complex, and interwoven book, yet I was struck by its vivid use of characterisation. Indeed, this complexity of plot, language, and syntax is why it is such great source material to translate into song. The novel’s strong emotions and characterisation, when set to music, are distilled into a spectacle that not only has something to say, but the power to be emotionally moving.

The tension at the heart of Les Mis is Inspector Javert’s fanatical obsession with hunting down Valjean. It’s this very tension that allows Les Mis to work so well both on the page and in song. It provides an energy that pulls the narrative onwards while building momentum within it, creating scope for character development and emotional exploration, until we reach the climactic finale. Condensing a two-thousand-page long 19th-century French novel into a three-hour musical is an impressive feat, yet the richness of Hugo’s original text would offer ample inspiration to any artist. 

Spring Awakening: From 1890s Germany to Broadway 

Perhaps it’s ironic that Spring Awakening, a musical which I’ve never actually seen, is among the musicals closest to my heart. While I have only ever experienced the show through a mixture of grainy early-2000s YouTube clips and the Spotify recording of the original Broadway cast, its diverse range of moving songs have stayed with me ever since. Spring Awakening’s score was influenced by rock, folk, and electronic music, giving it a sound which was different to the majority of musicals at the time. Because of its youthful, rebellious energy, Spring Awakening resonated strongly with a generation of young people. 

The musical is adapted from Frank Wedekind’s 1891 German play of the same name, and it is simultaneously very true to and a complete reimagining of its original source material. Appropriately for a musical, this paradox is best encapsulated in its songs. Rock-inspired numbers such as ‘The Bitch of Living’, ‘Don’t Do Sadness’, and ‘Totally Fucked’ are worlds away in tone, language, and sound from the stiflingly repressed and authoritarian atmosphere of the musical’s setting. Here, adults view the teenagers’ budding sexual curiosity and questioning of societal norms as a threat to the established order. These songs don’t take place within the show’s core action, but instead in a kind of ‘alternate reality’, or space of psychological revelation. In the original Broadway production, characters would pull out hand-held mics from their clothing and sing directly to the audience. Entering their own personal ‘song-world’, each teenager expresses the thoughts and feelings that they are forbidden or unable to articulate in their ‘real’ lives. 

Once I’d read a translation of Wedekind’s play, it dawned on me how perfect it was, if unexpected, as the source material for a modern rock musical. The musical retains the energy and authenticity of the original play’s young voices, many of which Wedekind based on sketches from his own childhood, and the core themes of censorship and repression which evoke a need for alternate forms of expressing pent-up emotion. After all, what could be more expressive or angsty than rock music? 

The final chapter, and the closing scene 

Musical theatre owes a great debt to the literature of preceding centuries. There are countless more examples of classic literature which have been transformed into modern musical phenomena. Overall, it comes back to one word: inspiration. Often, all we need is one idea to ignite a spark that leads to something greater.

Rich and generative: In conversation with ‘The Glass Menagerie’

Jessica Phillips
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Rich and generative: In conversation with ‘The Glass Menagerie’

The Glass Menagerie is one of Tennessee Williams’ most famous plays which, until recently, had escaped my attention. I’m no stranger to Tennessee Williams: that name takes me back three years (oh god) to my sixth-form days, spent poring over A Streetcar Named Desire, and trying to understand what on earth ‘plastic-theatre’ meant, all while my teacher lusted over Marlon Brando’s 1951 portrayal of Stanley. 

Yet The Glass Menagerie is a play with its own value, and not one to be overshadowed by the rest of Williams’ repertoire. After the success of The Creditors last Michaelmas, the Keble-based Crazy Child Productions is set to bring Williams’ breakout work to the Keble O’Reilly. This play’s narrative is told by Tom (Oli Spooner) who spends his time reflecting on the past, his mother Amanda (Lyndsey Mugford), and sister Laura (Matilda Beloou). The family are struggling to make a living in St Louis, and Amanda, an example of Williams’ typical ‘faded Southern Belle’ archetype, desperately wants to find a suitor for her daughter, whose physical disability and social anxiety made her withdraw from the world. 

The memories of the play aren’t confined to the stage; for director George Robson, this is a play he has wanted to do since his sixth form days, but claims that “there just wasn’t time”. However, time certainly isn’t an issue for this particular production, which was scheduled for last term but moved back to Hilary, and out of the BT studio into the much larger space of the Keble O’Reilly. The show is being performed in the round, so the rehearsal began with rearranging the chairs. I took my place in a corner, opposite Crazy Child Productions’ two directors, Magdalena Lacey-Hughes and George Robson.

Lacey-Hughes and Robson decided on this particular circular configuration as it relates to the sense of entrapment in the play. Lacey-Hughes describes how it focuses both the audience and Tom “together on the centre of what’s happening” – in other words, Tom’s memory. The configuration poses some practical challenges: “You can’t hide anything,” Robson notes; there’s no space on stage where the actors can escape the gaze of the audience. This made the rehearsal particularly dynamic, as the directors rotated around the space to check the audience’s sightlines. Spooner contorted himself in his chair as he directed his lines to different sides of the space. The actors imbued these movements with intentionality, discussing why their characters were changing positions, to fit the considerations of the circular space with the script’s meaning. 

Despite the theme of entrapment and enclosure in this play, Robson emphasises that rehearsal is a very free space, where the actors are open to making mistakes. “You can’t do it right, until you know what it looks like to do it wrong,” he told me during our conversation, demonstrating not only his capability as a director but also his potential in a career as a life coach. Perhaps it is this attitude that gave the whole rehearsal its easy feel. The two actors, Mugford and Spooner, who were present at this rehearsal slipped in and out of character with such ease that it was sometimes hard to tell what was genuine casual chatter and what was performance. The roles of the directors and actors sometimes blended into one: Lacey-Hughes stepped into the scene to demonstrate a few dance steps before Spooner, and Mugford discussed the character of Tom with Spooner as they negotiated the scene and the way they wanted to perform it. They asked questions about the script, gained clarity on the meaning through putting Williams’ words into modern terms: “He’s not too good-looking” became: “He’s not straight-up peng”, and “He’s not right-down homely?” became “So he’s chopped?”. This playful conversation demonstrated the freedom of the rehearsal space which allowed the actors to use these unconventional techniques to become more comfortable with their characters’ interactions. 

The two actors demonstrated a deep understanding of the script’s versatility. “You can tweak the phrasing of something, and suddenly you feel like you’re seeing it completely differently,” Mugford explained. This versatility contributes to a certain ambiguity around the characters and the play as a whole – “it’s not necessarily always clear how you should be feeling about what’s happening, and how you should be feeling about the characters,” she continues. It’s for this reason that she describes the play as “murky”, both for the unreliability of the play’s narrative, and the uncertainty regarding each character’s morality. However, Mugford likens the murkiness of this particular play to pond water, rather than pollution. “It’s rich, it’s generative” she describes, and this is certainly evident in Crazy Child Productions’ adaptation of the show. The small snippet of this show which I observed retained all the classic elements of Tennessee Williams’ work as I know it, and yet imbued it with a naturalness which felt invigorating. I left the rehearsal entirely intrigued by the production, by all the things that ran unsaid beneath the characters’ conversation, and even in my conversation with the directors. This very uncertainty, yet richness of potential, has certainly caught my attention. I eagerly anticipate the final product. 

The Glass Menagerie runs at the Keble O’Reilly Theatre from the 4th-8th February. 

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