Wednesday, April 30, 2025
Blog Page 497

Could YouTube punditry bring about a revolution in the way we follow sport?

Thomas Lyne
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Could YouTube punditry bring about a revolution in the way we follow sport?

The archetypal pundit for televised coverage a football or rugby fixture is easy to identify. A white male, between the ages of 45 and 70, and a former player. We can find some comfort in the fact that tentative moves have been made towards a sorely-needed diversification of this Boomer/Gen X white man’s domain, as we saw with the introduction of Eni Aluko at ITV and Alex Scott at the BBC for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. However, no such progress has been made when it comes to another distinguishing feature of the industry. It would seem that the posteriors of players who have hung up their boots continue to exercise a stranglehold on TV-set sofa space.

Sports punditry is a big-money business. It’s no surprise that in the UK, the growth of the business has been most palpable in football, where the domestic television broadcast deal for the Premier League has soared to the dizzying heights of £1,665,000,000 per season. In July 2019 it was revealed that Gary Lineker was the BBC’s highest earner in the financial year 2018-19, raking in a salary of £1.75 million. Adam Bennett at the The Sun was quick to point out the remarkable rise in pay in the sector: Lineker’s wage represents a thirteenfold increase from the £130,000 (adjusted for inflation) that Jimmy Hill, who presented the show between 1973 and 1988, had been earning. 

The BBC is injecting equally staggering sums of money into its coverage of Rugby Union. Jonathan Davies was reported in 2017 to be in a wage band securing him £150,000-£195,999 a year. If this is what has to be forked out to bring a legend of the game into the line-up, I can’t help but wonder if they could be getting a bigger bang for the buck. Jonathan Davies’ dulcet tones, and his outbursts of endearing bias whenever his Welsh compatriots take to the field, make for great telly. But perhaps former players like Davies could find a perfect complement in a pundit with a more holistic tactical perspective.

Thank goodness I stumbled upon the Squidge Rugby YouTube Channel during the Rugby World Cup last year. The 2019 edition of the tournament was the first that I’d followed with any real sense of purpose, but this was no coincidence. It was Squidge’s coverage that sparked a revival of my interest in the sport, which had admittedly been waning ever since my playing career, far from stellar by all accounts, was cut short by an ignominious broken finger in Year 9. I’ll never know if I would’ve been making a name for myself in the Varsity Match, but now that I’ve been enlightened by these new insights, I can at least pretend to know what’s going on in a rugby game. 

What more could you want? A bright and witty young Welshman named Robbie Owen whose videos somehow reconcile the extremely technical aspects of rugby with the ridiculousness of a game where, as he notes in his YouTube channel description, “not even the ball makes sense”. His videos may be meticulously prepared, especially given the mammoth editing task his ambitious surveys on years of footage no doubt bring to the table, but the irony remains sharp and spontaneous. 

In years of half-hearted Six Nations and World Cup viewership, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term ‘forward pod’ or any meaningful considerations of the formation of the forward pack. Squidge makes it his mission to highlight these nebulous tactical phenomena. His videos are never stat-driven, like the baseball analysis behind the Oakland Athletics’ ‘Moneyball’ strategies of the early-2000s (watch Bennett Miller’s 2011 film Moneyball to see what I mean). Instead, they are a series of punctiliously precise observations, which speak much louder than the territory or line breaks that punctuate BBC and ITV coverage. Squidge’s analysis achieves the same kind of victory over people who have ‘been there, done that’ as Billy Beane’s denunciation of his hubristic team of ‘experienced’ scouts as depicted in the film.

I remember the first video I watched was his post-match analysis of Wales’ narrow 29-25 victory over Australia in the World Cup. This video does exactly what punditry can and should do. It identified the method in the madness and has indelibly changed the way I look back on that game. His analysis of Dan Biggar’s 36th second drop goal epitomises this. When watching it live, I attributed this unorthodox spark of brilliance to impulsive opportunism. This was by no means the case. from the kick off, the ball was fired straight at Michael Hooper, Australia’s notoriously menacing flanker, taking him out of the game, and with him, the wind out of Australia’s sails in the breakdown. And then, Squidge shows us, Wales sent in a pack of their most effective counter-ruckers to chase the ball – Alun Wyn Jones, Aaron Wainwright and Ken Owens. Instead of following traditional wisdom and sending in their quickest players, they send in ‘some big Welsh blokes’ and win the ball back in a flash. What’s wonderful here is that there is no barrage of technical clichés, and no tedious contextualisation, just a quick, tongue-in-cheek dose of critical perspicacity.

Moreover, his engagement with the sport on his channel extends far beyond the analysis of what happens on the pitch. His 20-minute-long aside on the Israel Folau homophobia scandal earned him an unexpected feature on Australian breakfast television. To top it off, he never shies away from a niche international rugby story either. It would be hard to imagine Uruguayan, Namibian or Canadian rugby being granted more than a passing remark in game commentary given the overwhelmingly Tier One-centric perspective of the traditional broadcasting and publishing outlets. Sparing no effort, Squidge devotes his time to even the smallest of rugby markets. 

The channel’s rise has hardly been easy. The Six Nations made a copyright claim against his channel in 2019, and he only survived the scare because of his community’s intervention. The strikes on YouTube were removed, but this wasn’t the end of his trouble – during the World Cup, his channel once more faced copyright claims, this time coming from World Rugby. Instead of offering us the full videos, he was forced to create videos without game footage, in a format he dubbed ‘Squidge Abridged’. Though his channel is now back to full strength as we progress through the early stages of this year’s Six Nations, what’s clear is that the legal situation is never as cut and dried as we’d like when it comes to using video material in the way he does. For ‘outsider’ pundits like him, especially those coming from YouTube, a platform which presents an existential threat to the media establishment, there are bound to be setbacks, so it’s hardly surprising that YouTube sports channels are often wary of these game footage-heavy video formats.

What’s at once promising and concerning is that Robbie is finally getting the recognition he deserves. An in-depth interview with Rugby World, and a spate of appearances on BBC Two’s Scrum V reflects not only his surge in popularity – his channel now has more than 113,000 subscribers – but also some degree of receptiveness to a new form of pundit. What’s more, though it might seem strange, at the same time he was being stifled by their copyright claims, he was working with World Rugby’s YouTube team. One can only hope that even if he ever gets welcomed into the fold of the establishment, he doesn’t descend into spouting the same truisms about ‘game management’ or ‘quick ball’ that plague prime-time punditry. 

The emergence of a generation of tech-savvy fans who’ve made a name for themselves on the internet is certainly something worth getting behind. Squidge is looking to provide an alternative view on a sport where coverage is monopolised by a firmly-established set of ‘insider’ experts. But in football, I’m yet to find something that gives me the same sense of satisfaction. The only real equivalent in football for what Squidge is doing is the work done by ‘fan channels’ like Arsenal Fan TV, The Redmen TV and FullTimeDevils. These channels may offer a similar sense of grassroots authenticity, but they have a tendency to churn out ‘fan reactions’ and are overly preoccupied with clickbait and catchy soundbites to offer meaningful in-depth analysis. One thing’s for sure: MoTD and Sky Sports are hardly quaking in their boots.

I’m not asking for outbreaks of intuitive lyricism, nor am I asking for strokes of tactical genius. All I want is something that changes the way I watch the game. Not something that frames or supplements it, but a meaningful critique of the sporting spectacle, one that demystifies, but doesn’t disenchant. And perhaps a side order of superfluous terminology to add to my arsenal of sporting jargon. I think I’ve found a guy who provides me with all of that, but sadly, I don’t think a YouTube pundit in the mould of Squidge will be giving Gary Lineker a run for his money (of which he has a lot) any time soon. But thankfully that means they won’t be wearing nothing but boxers on prime-time television any time soon either. 

In Conversation with Baroness Hale

Tilly Walters
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In Conversation with Baroness Hale

The diaries of Lord Hope, the first Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court, describe Baroness Brenda Hale: “Brenda is not easy to deal with, frightens some people and is so relentless in her pursuit of her agenda about women.”. First impressions of Hale don’t fit with Hope’s picture of a difficult woman on the warpath; she is immediately warm and welcoming. 

In December, Baroness Hale retired as President of the Supreme Court. She became a prominent name after her central role in blocking Boris Johnson from proroguing parliament before Brexit’s deadline on 31st October. Her role in 2017’s Miller 2 drew criticism from the press, including the Daily Mail who branded her an “Ex-barmaid with a spider brooch who spun legal web that snared PM.” Since retiring at 75, Hale has hardly stopped working. She’s accepted new jobs as a visiting fellow at Mansfield, LMH and UCL. 

She plans to tour the world as a visiting judge, speaking in Hong Kong and California. But today, Hale is at New College, Oxford, speaking at an event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of women matriculating to the college.  We sit down in the Warden’s lodgings before her lecture; Hale is wearing one of her signature brooches, although not the spider brooch that brought her tabloid attention. 

She’s been the pioneer in many roles in her life, and she describes how men in the institutions she went into “were a bit frightened to have a woman, didn’t know what to make of me to begin with.”

When Hale studied at Girton College, Cambridge, she was just one of six women reading law in her year. “I think the women, when I was there, almost all felt very privileged to be there. We didn’t feel entitled. Whereas we were surrounded by a lot of men who didn’t think they were privileged. They just thought they were entitled. Though, Cambridge was quite good fun, as you can imagine”. 

“I think the fact that the colleges are now all mixed in Oxford in Cambridge means the gender balance is more even, and this has made a huge difference.”

She matriculated in 1963, received the highest mark in her year for Law, graduating with a starred first. After graduating, she decided to go into academia, becoming Professor of Law at Manchester in 1986. By then, she had already started part-time work as a barrister. 

We discussed how 62% of those reading law at Oxford are women. “It’s probably slightly less than nationally, but certainly there are more women reading law than men. I’m a bit worried if it got too far the other way. I think 60/40 either way is acceptable, but once you go either side of that, it’s damaging.” 

For women in the law profession, “things are getting better,” says Hale. She cites that although the QC rate has been going up about 1% a year for the last 10 years, it shows how low it was 10 years ago.

“The acceptance rate for QC applications by women is higher than it is for men. So, the trouble is you don’t apply to be a QC until you’ve got a certain sort of practice. And, until recently for a variety of reasons, women were not developing that sort of practice. 

However, “It’s still a bit of a problem. We did a study of the number of women barristers who were instructed to appear in the Supreme Court. The figures were depressingly low.” The study shows that, out of 709 leading counsel, just 94 were female (13.3%). Of the 709 first juniors, 203 were female (28.6%), compared to the 38.7% of the junior Bar which is female.

“We felt that most of those were juniors, not actually on their feet. So the number of women on their feet in the Supreme Court is less than it really should be. That is a problem because obviously those are the women who are the most successful. I don’t say that’s the only route onto the higher judiciary, but nevertheless, it’s the principal route onto the course. So if there are not enough of them being instructed in the court of appeal and the Supreme Court, that’s something to be tackled.”

Hale has been the pioneer in many of the roles she has held, and is the role model for women whether students of the law or not. I ask whether it has been difficult without a female role model.

“In almost everything I have done I’ve either been the first or one of the first. I’ve sometimes been the second – sometimes it’s harder to be the second than the first, not for yourself, but for the powers that be to psych themselves up to have a second woman. So I’ve been very fortunate in the first women that I have followed. So I don’t think I have generally had role models among women in the law for that reason. Elizabeth Butler-Sloss was the first in the court of appeal, the first woman president of the family division, was a role model to some extent. She and I get on incredibly well, but we couldn’t be more different, which is a good illustration that women are as different from one another as men are. but mostly I’ve had to do it my way, because there was no other way that I knew.”

“Of course, I can follow the male role model. It was more dramatic becoming the first woman Law Lord in 2004 than becoming President, as it was more of a step change from the court of appeal. They were a bit frightened to have a woman, didn’t know what to make of me to begin with. It took them time to get used to me. So that was much more of a change than becoming the first woman president because we’re a small organization and they all knew me, hey get what I was like. I think they mainly thought they could get on with me, and I had a very good role model to follow in my predecessor, Lord Neuberger. I didn’t feel being President was actually that difficult.”

I ask her about the cases she’s been involved with that she’s most proud of, and she is quick to mention some that have made extremely important developments in the field of family law.  The solution to Stack v Dowden, a ruling to deal with properties held in joint names, she thought was “blindingly obvious.” 

Secondly, she was “very pleased” with the case ZH (Tanzania), which gave priority to the interests of children in all public law decisions, but particularly immigration ones.

Thirdly, her work on Yemshaw v London Borough of Hounslow broadened “the understanding of domestic violence from physical to emotional.”

Anticipating a the inevitable question, frequent since her jugement in Miller 2 shot her into the national consciousness, she admits that “the prorogation case has to be my number one judgement.”

Both Miller cases received intense press scrutiny. I mentioned the Daily Mail front page that labelled three High Court judges ‘Enemies of the People’ for their judgement in favour of Miller. On the relationship between the media and the judiciary, Hale was decisive. 

“Well, it’s not for the judiciary to balance it. We have a free press, a free media. So it is up to them to decide within the limits of the law what they say. I think in terms of ‘the enemies of the people’ front page, it was of course the Lord Chancellor’s job to defend the independence of the judiciary. And I don’t think that would have been difficult.”

“I think had I been Lord Chancellor, I would have said: “We have a free press in this country. You are entitled to say and print what you like, but it is my job as a senior member of the government charged with defending the independence of the judiciary to tell you you’re wrong. Simple as that. You are wrong. These are conscientious judges, making a judgment in accordance with their traditional oath to uphold the law.”

“And there is a right to appeal and we shall see what the Supreme Court says about it. Of course, the Supreme court upheld [the High Court’s judgements]. If I’d been feeling very bold, I might’ve gone on to say: beware what you wish for. Because if you are serious about respect for the rule of law in this country, you have to be very careful about undermining public confidence in the integrity of the judiciary and the integrity.”

“I think I’d have liked to have been in a position to say all of that. I wasn’t in a position to say because I was on the appeal court. There was nothing we could do about it. That was the problem. There was no way in which the judiciary could defend itself against that. That was why it was the job of a certain member of the government.”

Hale was dismissive of Boris Johnson’s call for an appointment system decided by Parliament: “That’s another beware what you wish for, because if you have political appointments, you have political judgements and at the moment we don’t have political appointments and we don’t have political judgments. On the whole, like it or dislike it, very few people think that the judgments of the Supreme Court are motivated by party political considerations. I don’t know the party politics of my colleagues. I can guess with one or two people and I’m probably right. Not so much with the current ones in fact, but one or two in the past it was fairly clear. But generally speaking we don’t know one another’s party politics.”

“We know more about their judicial and legal philosophies than we do about their party politics. And they don’t go hand in hand.”

Does she have any plans to try her hand at the House of Lords, where she has automatically become a crossbencher?

“Although I have taken the oath in the house of Lords, I don’t see myself spending much time there for some time to come unless there’s something there I really don’t feel I can keep my mouth shut about. But that hasn’t turned up yet. And of course, while there’s anything going on to do with Brexit i’m not going to do anything. But that’ll be interesting to see. Obviously the retired judges are all crossbenchers and I’m one of life’s crossbenchers anyway. 

“I’m not signing up to any of the political parties. I will say, I couldn’t possibly take a party whip. 

“In the Lords the party whips are pretty powerless, but nevertheless I couldn’t take one because that’s agreeing to vote for things that you don’t necessarily agree with. But that’s a long time down the track.”

Photo Credit: Jonathan Kirkpatrick

Review: Shadows of Troy

Justin Kendall
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Review: Shadows of Troy

Translating and adapting two Greek plays and then squeezing them into one production was an ambitious undertaking, but Shadows of Troy has pulled it off.

The first act – a version of Iphigenia at Aulis by Euripides – was compelling, particularly towards its end. It follows the leaders of the Greek army as it waits for the weather to sail to war, and the events leading up to the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter. As Iphigenia, Maddy Page was outstanding, subtly balancing her character’s conflicting emotions of courage and terror. Her relationship with her father (Tom Bannon) was also very well handled. Agamemnon himself was interestingly characterised as brooding and insecure, and the more brutish male characters of Menelaus (Alex Marks) and Achilles (Luke Buckley Harris) did well to overpower him convincingly. Katie Friedli Walton was a perfect Clytemnestra: her embrace of the sobbing Iphigenia towards the end of the act was a standout moment.

Despite great individual performances, there were points towards the beginning of the play when energy and variation was lacking: the reunion scenes upon Clytemnestra and Iphigenia’s arrival home, for example, were unnecessarily morose. To see more joy in these relationships (in spite of some of the characters’ knowledge of the circumstances) might have heightened the sense of tragedy when they are eventually ripped apart.

Providing some of the necessary energy, however, was the absolutely fantastic chorus, who vitalised the more exposition-based sections of the play. This was with the help of excellent choreography, lighting and sound, which were essential to the play’s overall aesthetic and which quietly guided the audience’s attention without becoming intrusive. But even when not centre-stage, the chorus was an ominous presence, constantly calling into question and often undermining the play’s assumed power dynamic. The attention to detail in this regard made small moments powerful – their blocking of the exits when Iphigenia contemplates fleeing is one that comes to mind. 

At the interval I felt as if the play should have finished in its entirety, but it was in Act Two (based on Ajax by Sophocles) that Agamemnon and Clytemnestra really shone. Tom Bannon’s portrayal of his character’s madness was deeply moving, as well as being an extreme but natural development of the Agamemnon we saw in the first act. His suicide echoed his daughter’s sacrifice, bringing together the two parts of the play and suddenly making it feel like one unified piece. Unfortunately, the end of the play seemed like a missed opportunity. Having watched such a powerful end to the first act (the curtain descended on the motionless actors in the blackout, with the wind howling) I was left underwhelmed. Luckily this did not significantly detract from the play as a whole, which was impressive and devastating in equal measure. Particularly given the scale and ambition of the project, Shadows of Troy is a formidable achievement.

Queerness, Revulsion and Magic – the Dissonant Worlds of Angels in America

Luke Dunne
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Queerness, Revulsion and Magic – the Dissonant Worlds of Angels in America

‘Children of the new morning, criminal minds 
Selfish and greedy and loveless and blind. 
Reagan’s children’ 

Angels in America is a play about bodies. Kushner revels in giving his characters bodies which fail them, which defy their self-aggrandisement, which betray their religious principles, or which simply give up entirely and cease to function, leaving even his most powerful or seductive character bed ridden and forcibly benign. It is impossible, I think, to write not just a play with queer characters but a self-titled ‘Gay Fantasia’ without focusing on and addressing the body, and its relationship with queer identity. 

The primary role the body played for gay men in 1980s New York, where the play was set, was fundamentally destructive. The AIDS crisis ripped through vulnerable communities, whilst the term ‘gay plague’ was thrown around derisively by the hand wringing moralists of the Evangelical Right, the word plague itself feels strangely apt. When Kushner wrote the first part of Angels, doctors weren’t entirely sure what caused AIDS – blaming HIV was only the ‘best guess’. It’s difficult to imagine what that must have been like, to have your friends struck down, suddenly and with startling regularity, with a disease about which nothing was known other than that it leads to a swift and painful death. 

Add to that, of course, the fact that for queer people at the time, as with many today, friends could never be just friends. They became your family, too, because in many if not most cases living openly meant giving up your ‘real’ family. Because AIDS wasn’t the only betrayal from your body, oh no your body had already betrayed you when it decided that you should be attracted to the wrong kind of person. That sense of profound self-disgust is found in Angelsmore often when characters struggle to come to terms with their sexuality than with their illness. At the time, the distinction for some was not clear cut – at the time when Angelswas first performed, the World Health Organisation still classified homosexuality as a mental disorder. 

Roy Cohn, the macho, sadistic lawyer who turns out to have AIDS, isn’t concerned with his impending demise. Rather, he demands his doctor pretend, to the outside world and even to Roy himself, that he has liver cancer. According to Roy, he is not a homosexual. He can’t be, because homosexuals are men who ‘know nobody, and who nobody knows. Men with zero clout’. Roy has a lot of clout, and because he sits above homosexuals in the ‘pecking order’, he is not one of them, merely a ‘heterosexual guy who fucks around with dudes’. 

Roy Cohn is not, unlike the other characters in Angels, wholly fictional. He is closely based on the real Roy Cohn, a man who amongst other things worked for Joe McCarthy during the ‘Red Scare’. Part of his work for McCarthy involved outing, accurately or otherwise, thousands of supposed homosexuals who worked for the U.S government. Destroying the person lives of fellow sufferers seems, for Kushner, to lie just behind the power and the glory of the American dream. Wealth, class, race – all critical to achieving a certain kind of power, but nobody can save you from the selfishness and distrust which permeates a society fundamentally ill at ease with itself. ‘History is about to crack wide open’. 

But disgust is not merely turned inwards. Distrust of the bodies of others, categorising them as ‘dangerous’ or simply abnormal, is the main vector for action in the play. Joe describes his wife’s intellectual disobedience as ‘emotional problems’. Pathologizing things you cannot understand can almost feel natural when everyone is ill, or desperately terrified about becoming so. Homophobia is not rational, it is a reptile brain response. It is pure, physical disgust, horror which characters in the play seeks to articulate in various ways. And as with any such feeling, animal instincts are the fundamental motivation. Roy appeals to the notion of a fundamental hierarchy, with homosexuals lacking in moral fibre placed at the very bottom of the ‘food chain’. For Joe, homosexuality is an afront to God. But whereas for Joe his religious convictions haunt him throughout the play, feeding his sexual ill ease, driving a wedge between himself and anyone who loves him. Both views, both held by gay men, are essentially motivated by a desparate need to elevate themselves above those who society has rejected. They must find some identity greater than the abnormal, the strange, the quite-literally queer. Fear and greed lie at the heart of the American psyche, and never is this so clearly expressed than in the way homosexuals are treated. 

Harper sees things far more simply. When confronted for the first time with Prior, an actual real life in the flesh gay man, she simply informs him that her church doesn’t believe in homosexuals. His immortal reply, that his church doesn’t believe in Mormons, elicits a moment of confusion, a laugh and then an innocent change tack from her. 

Harper is, in a sense, the bellweather for reason – she isn’t clouded by the same personal struggles Joe is, and so she is able to adapt. She has to – her immediate reality is utterly hopeless, boring, the goldfish bowl of domestic drudgery which even in the 1980s was the lot of many American woman. She has become addicted to Valium, the quintessential substance abuse problem of the bored housewife. But Harper is so much more than the life she has been left with – she is thoroughly intelligent but above even that, she is marked out for her imagination. She creates worlds for herself – filled with fanciful characters, transcending the real world so thoroughly that snowy New York City transforms into Antarctica, and homeless people keeping themselves warm can become eskimos lighting fires across the ice. Harper’s hallucinations seem at first to be the expression of profound nihilism. This world is too tedious, so selfish and filled with distrust that substance abuse and escapism of all kinds is to be actively encouraged. 

But as the play progresses, above all the horror there emerges another world. Harper’s dreams may be only dreams, but nevertheless this is a world filled with ghosts, with angels, with divine messages and a fate in heaven. This is a Gay Fantasia, after all, and the aesthetics of campness are toyed with throughout only to create a wonderful, decadent metaphysical system of voices and angels. This is the kind of spirituality which has been turned against gay people for generations, used as a moral justification for generations of stigma, reimagined by Kushner into a magnificent technicolour picture of higher reality. It is the fantasy of acceptance and love and beauty so obviously missing from the world of the body. But it is still, even by the end of the play, ultimately a fantasy. Having a world as brutally realist as the one Kushner paints overlaid with these magical moments creates a cognitive dissonance that is never fully resolved. But the overall sense is one of loss, of grief for the kind of beauty which can only be imposed on the world through theatre and artifice. Kushner’s stage directions for the Angel’s appearance and for the use of stage magic is that it should be stage magic – the wires should show. Angels in America is a play where the only possible response to reality is make believe, where imagination becomes a necessary form of self-preservation. The tyranny of disgust, the tyranny of the body and its weakness is too great and hopeless to bear. What Kushner offers, if only for a moment, is the possibility of ecstatic make believe. And a moment is, perhaps, just enough. 

Angels in America Part 1 is playing at the Keble O’Reilly Theatre Wednesday 19 – Sunday 23 February at 7:15pm with a matinee on Saturday at 2:30. You can buy tickets here: https://fixr.co/event/648021306?fbclid=IwAR2OG4RVZYxQnAxubBGh1RJ95LtrQdbpynO4qrzAyuGnnRV6ZuNKI3r_ZrE

Review: Bad Nick

Nia Brown
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Review: Bad Nick

Nicholas is a critically acclaimed author, a literary genius, and a winner of no less than fourteen Man Booker prizes…except that all of his novels were actually written by his wife. Now that she’s left him for the local butcher, Nicholas finds himself embroiled in an mad scheme to win back the love of his life (and, of course, his literary career), as he attempts to save Nicola from the clutches of a potentially dangerous ‘midlife crisis’.

And so begins Bad Nick, a 70-minute play at the Michael Pilch Studio that is packed to the brim with laughs and even has the odd song thrown in for good measure! If the singing is at times a little patchy then it does nothing but add to the delight of a show that refuses to take itself too seriously. Throwing caution to the wind, the play relishes in calamity and the ridiculous incompetence of its characters. 

With minimalist staging, all focus is honed in upon the actors who deliver Shepherd-Cross and Brown’s script with impeccable comic timing. Harry Berry is perfect as the exasperated, yet excitable, Nicholas Martin. With an ability to elicit laughter with nothing more than a kooky grin and a 90s hairdo, Berry radiates a loveable charm that helps buoy a remarkably hopeless character, unable to write so much as a semi-colon. Amelia Holt offers a wonderful counterbalance as the brilliant Nicola Martin, a vexed author trapped in an industry where it seems impossible for a woman to have written such thoughtful works of literature. Thankfully, the character of Nicola resists the frustratingly common trope of the comedy’s dull and rational female voice, and Holt does well to convey a character whose absurdity is an equal match to that of her husband.

Their son, played by Sam Scruton, helps deliver a resounding highlight of the show in the form of a hilariously twisted rendition of ‘Baby it’s Cold Outside’ alongside Cameron Forbes as the butcher. Meanwhile the dynamic duo, Emily Lockyer and Rory Wilson, run riot as two police officers more concerned with petty intellectual theft than any of the other, more glaring crimes that take place. Whether they take on the role of a crafty editor or a confounded journalist, there is no weak link in the cast as they shift between one blundering character to the next. Particularly brilliant was Cameron Forbes’ rendition of a melodramatic vicar belting out his impassioned power ballad. 

Whilst seeming to throw itself into humour with reckless abandon, Bad Nick is a well-structured and well-executed comedy. Running jokes recurred frequently enough to push humour to new heights without letting the jokes themselves go stale. Fast-paced and funny, Frog’s Legs’ production of Bad Nick is effortlessly witty and engaging.

TOP TEN BEST FILMS FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

Colette Webber
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TOP TEN BEST FILMS FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

Maybe you are the kind of person who avoids participating in even a card exchange when February 14th rolls around each year in a view to single-handedly dismantle the commodification of romance™ (good luck), or perhaps you’re the kind of person who has been tracking down the best set menus for two (small glass of house wine included) across Oxford for weeks now. In the forthcoming list I am perhaps making a genuine effort to cater to the veritable smorgasbord of feelings that V-Day elicits, or maybe I’m just hedging my bets, but regardless I aim to provide the former group with a few films to question their world-weary cynicism and the latter group with a few to remind them that love isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Just maybe one of these movies will succeed in quietly haunting the latter group as they slurp away on their mussels at Pierre Victoire. Either way, one thing I believe we can all get behind RE Valentine’s Day is that it presents us with a chance to articulate, to whoever, that they are lowkey the person keeping you in once piece, and you love them, and they deserve chocolate, and more pertinently, a film night with you. So, here it is, a not at all biased list of the best films about ‘love’.

  1. Rebecca (1940)

Netflix recently announced a big budget adaptation of the classic novel starring Lily James, but the much earlier adaptation (which was Alfred Hitchcock’s first foray into American cinema) is always worth returning to. Rebecca tells the story of a young, inexperienced woman who becomes enraptured by the quiet glamour of the infamous widower Max de Winter and his aristocratic Cornish manor, Manderley. But once they are married the new Mrs De Winter begins to feel increasingly haunted by the presence of Max’s first wife, Rebecca. If you have already re-watched Gone Girl twice or if you loved the strange romance and grandeur of Phantom Thread, then this beautifully acted adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 psychological thriller/romance might be what you’re looking for.

Promotional poster for “Rebecca”
  1. The Graduate (1967)

Mike Nichol’s vision of the ‘Summer of Love,’ set to an iconic Simon and Garfunkel score, manages to capture the disquieting combination of lusty adrenaline and dismal boredom that a directionless college graduate, Benjamin, experiences upon returning to his sun-soaked LA suburb. This restlessness leads him into a romantic entanglement with the wife of his father’s law partner, Mrs Robinson, and her daughter Elaine. You could watch this film 100 times and never grow tired of the final scene and its mixture of incredible victory and troubling uncertainty. 

  1. Harold and Maude (1971)

This deadpan tale of a bored, wealthy 20-year-old with a penchant for all things dead and dismal follows the taboo romance he embarks on with an eccentric 80 something year old woman, whom he meets at a funeral service. Punctuated with songs by Cat Stevens, it is probably the definitive cult film of the 1970s– so unique that little can be said in summary. We’ll leave it here: it is life affirming and lovely.

Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort in “Harold and Maude”
  1. Paris Texas (1988)

When Travis wanders out of the West Texas desert with only an empty water bottle and the dusty, wrinkled suit he is dressed in, he seems to have no idea who he is or where he has come from. What follows is a confused and painful reunion with those he left behind for many unexplained years. With a memorably moody score provided by Ry Cooder, the flickering of neon motel signs, gas stations and an electric atmosphere that refuses to settle, Wim Wenders’ brutally intimate vision of the American Dream in disarray still feels in 2020 as astonishing as it must have done in 1988. This is a film about all kinds of love, how to lose it, and whether it can sometimes be recovered.

  1.  When Harry Met Sally (1989)

For many years I avoided this film like the plague because absolutely everyone, from my mum to overly serious film students, begged me to watch it. I was convinced it would be another sickly yet shallow boy-meets-girl two-hour trudge. How wrong I was. The film actually provides the playbook for every other modern Rom Com you have seen and does it better than any successor could. Nora Ephron is a legend and her screenplay is totally engaging. For anyone who has ever ended up with someone that they were initially repulsed by when they first met, this vaguely unwholesome love story is for you.

Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in “When Harry Met Sally”
  1. Chungking Express (1994)

Although Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000), with its dreamy take on the melancholy of 1960’s Hong Kong, initially seemed like the clear choice for this list, Chungking Express offers an equally stylish yet unpretentious vision of love in the city that’s touched by a whimsical instinct any French New Wave director would rightly kill for. The story, divided between two heartbroken policemen, is less interested in slow burning romance than it is in the protagonists’ desire to capture intimate moments amongst fast-moving crowds. This is an undeniably lighter film than much of Wong Kar Wai’s other work, but whether we are watching Cop 223 rush to the supermarket to save some soon expiring tins of pineapple, or Faye dancing blissfully to ‘California Dreamin’ by the Mamas and Papa’s as she serves customers kebabs under fluorescent lights, it is hard to resist the particular charms of this 1994 film.

  1. Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), Before Midnight (2013)

Adding the iconic indie trilogy that follows a couple and their conversations across three decades and three European cities to my top 10 list is, I admit, a slight cheat. In the first, and arguably best loved, film in the trilogy we walk around Vienna with Jesse and Celine after they meet by chance on a train on their way to totally different countries. The dialogue never feels saccharine or tiresome and the 80 minutes of ‘real-time’ walking and talking before Jesse’s morning train departs flashes by in an instant. Before Sunrise undoubtedly works well as a standalone film, but it felt wrong not to mention Before Sunset and Before Midnight too. The final film offers such a subtle study of marriage and  manages to sustain sympathy for both people so successfully that it makes Marriage Story (2019) look heavy-handed.

Ethan Hawke and Julia Delpy in “Before Sunset”
  1.  The Lunchbox (2013)

Mumbai operates on an exceedingly efficient system of lunchbox transportation. Each day workers’ families pack a selection of hot dishes into a three-tiered tin box and a team of 5000 dabbawallas (deliverymen) take them far and wide. It has been this way for at least 120 years. It is a single fault in this normally smooth system – a lunchbox delivered to the wrong address – that provides this warm film with its story of an unlikely pair whose lives intermingle.

  1. Black Mirror – Season 3, Episode 4, ‘San Junipero’ (2016)

I know, not a film, but bear with me. Just as I thought that Charlie Brooker’s now infamous series, which meditates on the pitfalls and peculiarities of a world dominated by tech, had gone on too long for its own good, this two-time Emmy award winning episode was released. Its depiction of a deceptively straightforward love story between two women, Yorkie and Kelly, who meet one Summer on holiday in 1980s California, is utterly uncharacteristic of the steadily cynical series. Perhaps this break from the shows’s usual negativity is the reason why the episode has experienced such success. It is by straying from its typical (undeniably entertaining) doom prophesying, and instead offering a return to the utopian visions of classic sci-fi, that “San Junipero” can, for a generation saturated by dystopian stories, offer the most unexpected vision of all.

Mackenzie Davis and Gugu Mbatha-Raw in “San Junipero.” photo credit: Netflix
  1. God’s Own Country (2017)

Francis Lee’s pared back, poetic debut follows a few months in the life of a young farmer, Johnny (played by a suitably mardy Josh O’Connor), who is isolated on a struggling farm in the Yorkshire Dales and struggles to locate himself in a vast landscape that feels far too small. The monotonous cycle of numb sex, copious drinking and 5am starts milkings is unexpectedly interrupted when Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu), a worker from Romania, is hired and jolts Johnny out of his numbed disaffection, allowing him to witness the brevity and beauty of his daily life for what is perhaps the first time. Nothing will ever be more glorious (or more Romantic with a capital R) than watching Johnny watch Gheorghe as he helps a sheep give birth to a slimy little lamb.

‘Just keep my martini cool’: Why On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) is the Epitome of Valentine’s Day Viewing

Poppy Sowerby
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‘Just keep my martini cool’: Why On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) is the Epitome of Valentine’s Day Viewing

Like indigestion or crippling heartbreak, Valentine’s Day is always just around the corner. I realise this because Wish.com has started targeting my Facebook feed with leather chaps and chastity cages, a classic algorithmic prank that, unlike romance, never gets old. What are you planning for V-Day? Do leave a response in the comments – but only if it involves tortured solo outings to Tesco, a botched face mask (the chin wax you never asked for), or a card from a secret admirer whose handwriting bears some resemblance to your mother’s. Let’s be frank: Valentine’s Day is a corporate shill monetising plasticky tokens of ‘love’ – an old term meaning ‘entrapment’ in Shakespearean, or something. Thankfully, I have found the tonic to the bitter weariness of my four-strong readership – and he comes with an Aston Martin and about three decent catchphrases. So put down those tissues and put on the 1969 goldmine that is On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

If you watch this film intoxicated, or you’re a middle-aged man, you might be able to enjoy its romantic delights without irony. The tone of the film, directed by Peter R. Hunt and starring George Lazenby in his only outing as 007, might be summarized in a single stage direction: ‘James puts his hands on Moneypenny’s behind’; but the social resonances of this opus go far beyond secretarial goosing. This pre-Christmas release was the final Bond of the sixties: with the gritty realism of seventies cinema poking its side-burned head round the bend, the film buffs among you might see this as a final splurge of mid-century celluloid optimism. Politicos, alternately, might interpret the break-neck espionage plot – which sees Bond encounter slaphead villain Blofeld and his crackpot plan to use twelve luscious ‘angels of death’ to enact biological warfare – as a sly fart of Cold War propaganda. But I prefer to see it for what it is – a pantomime shag-fest, replete with corruptible, giggly women and corrupting, grinning men. This, ladies, is true romance.

Because I’m committed to cross-generational discourse, I asked my correspondent baby boomer, Kirk Long, to review the film. He telegrammed me this: ‘He’s the super confident hero – she’s vulnerable – he saves her from drowning – she fiercely tries to resist, but he wins her over. She dies after finally finding happiness. The end!’ Diana Rigg (DBE), a celebrated Shakespearean actress who found mainstream fame in the tongue-in-cheek spy series The Avengers, lends her characteristic gravity to the role of Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, or ‘Tracy’ – daughter of mob boss Marc-Ange Draco. Plucked from the brink of suicide by the dapper Lazenby, the pair embarks on a whirlwind romance. Perhaps the second most subversive character called ‘Tracy’ on the British screen (pipped only Coronation Street’s murderous antagonist Tracy Barlow), the Contessa is the epitome of all Bond women, sticking her foot in the revolving door of babes sauntering in and out of James’s gin-soaked heart. Spiky, sexy and tragic, she is a proto-manic pixie dream girl – yet she doesn’t submit to Bond’s bumbling advances without a knowing comment or two. ‘Think about me – as a woman you just bought’, she jokes. ‘Who needs to buy?’ Bond returns, all that Brylcreem causing the meaning to bounce right off his head.

If you’re looking for something uplifting, look elsewhere – I’m sorry to say it, but Tracy comes a cropper. Firstly, Bond does the dirty on her with two of twelve ‘angels of death’ – but let’s pause here. These beautiful ‘henchwomen’ are kept prisoner by resident crone ‘Irma Blunt’, under the guises of being treated for various allergies in a Swiss clinic. They are weaponised by Blofeld (recurring supervillain) in contaminating (somehow) the global food supply with each of their allergies – which are each oddly specific to the culinary staples of their home countries. Blofeld will hold off on international havoc-wreaking if he is accepted as not-a-villain and given the title ‘Count de Bleauchamp’, which is hilarious because it’s basically a French way of saying ‘Blofeld’. 

Most of the girls don’t really have names – even on those weird fan pages on the internet I’ve been scrolling through for three hours – but I do think you can tell a lot from a person by their allergies. I myself am allergic to milk and eggs, which has resulted in a number of tragicomic incidents where my eyes have swollen up and my skin has turned the colour and texture of a rusty bike chain. Ironically, this first happened on Valentine’s Day two years ago, a day I will never forget. These women, however, do allergy in style – their glamour is a good instructional guide for female allergy-sufferers everywhere. There’s Nancy from Hungary (potatoes), Ruby from the UK (chicken) and Helen from the whole of ‘Scandinavia’ (fish). Joanna Lumley even gets a part. Bond gets down and dirty with the chicken lady and the fish lady, before witnessing a midnight brainwashing session and getting jumped by Irma Bunt – or ‘Bunted’.

A ski-chase (plus avalanche), a car-chase and a romantic chase (Bond proposes to Tracy in a barn) follow – a few chases later (I bet Bond has bunions) the pair finally marry in Portugal, as sidepiece extraordinaire Moneypenny tearfully watches on. Thankfully for Moneypenny, Tracy (spoiler alert) gets bumped off by a familiar-looking bald assassin – Blofeld! While the best scene is Blofeld’s earlier escape from his HQ in a bobsleigh, this moment tugs on the heartstrings like no other. Doomed to perpetual bachelorhood, Bond holds Tracy’s drooping head in his arms. The credits roll over a still image of the shattered windscreen, and the Bond theme suddenly blasts out. All in a day’s work.

This, reader, is all you need to know about Valentine’s Day. Corny slogans, gender essentialism and male happy endings: all the rites of the romantic season are here in 142 minutes of glorious technicolour. We should take this particular installment of 007 as an allegory of tragic love – and as a warning against bogus medical professionals, which I should have heeded when I went to see a homeopathic doctor who attempted to remedy my milk-and-egg woes by talking about my childhood and playing me music. Save the chocolates and roses: just keep my martini cool.

Cambridge Conservatives propose: “this house prefers Prince Andrew to Meghan Markle”

Sam Jones
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Cambridge Conservatives propose: “this house prefers Prince Andrew to Meghan Markle”

Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) have debated a motion entitled “This House prefers Prince Andrew to Meghan Markle.” The motion, which was presented at an Association Port and Policy event on January 25, was allegedly passed by a significant margin.

Prince Andrew has been immersed in controversy over his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in his jail cell in August of last year whilst awaiting sentencing for sex trafficking.

After an interview with the BBC’s Newsnight, the Prince was effectively forced to relinquish his royal duties and retreat from public life.

Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, has recently retreated from royal duties alongside her husband Prince Harry, with the intention of splitting their time between the United Kingdom and North America.

In a statement last month, the Duke and Duchess said: “After many months of reflection and internal discussions, we have chosen to make a transition this year in starting to carve out a progressive new role within this institution. 

“We intend to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen. 

“It is with your encouragement, particularly over the last few years, that we feel prepared to make this adjustment.”

The pair’s decision has sparked virulent controversy, including last month’s debate at the CUCA. Other motions debated at the event were “This House Would Scrap the BBC License Fee” and “This House Supports a Nuclear Iran.”

The Prince Andrew and Meghan Markle debate was the last of the evening. One attendee told The Tab that “most people weren’t sober after the second motion.”

The controversy over Prince Andrew’s close relationship with Epstein took off following his interview with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis.

In the interview, the Prince admitted he does not regret his close relationship with Epstein, stating “the people that I met and the opportunities that I was given to learn, either by him or because of him, were actually very useful.”

He denied allegations made by Virginia Giuffre (now Roberts) that she had sexual relations with Prince Andrew after being sex trafficked to him by Epstein in 2001.

Prince Andrew said Giuffre’s accusation of him sweating during the encounter meant her version of events could not be true, as he had a medical condition that prevented him from sweating at the time.

He told Maitlis: “I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War when I was shot at and I simply … it was almost impossible for me to sweat,”

Prince further criticised the authenticity of a photograph taken of him and Giuffre in 2001. “I don’t believe it’s a picture of me in London because … when I go out in London, I wear a suit and a tie,” he said.

“That’s what I would describe as… those are my travelling clothes… if I’m going overseas.”

The claim was made despite the fact newspapers have previously pictured Prince Andrew on a night out in London wearing jeans without a tie or blazer.

The Prince said: “nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don’t recollect that photograph ever being taken.”

He also provided an alibi for the events of March 10, 2001, saying he went to a Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter. He remembered the occasion as “weirdly distinct” as it was one of the few times he’d been to Woking or to the Pizza Express there, making it, in his own words, “a very unusual thing for me to do”.

The Duchess’ retreat from public life seems to have been as controversial, if not more so, than the Prince’s. Many have suggested that the backlash to Markle has been down to racism.

The Daily Mail has referred to Markle’s “exotic DNA” and described her as “almost straight outta Compton.”

The BBC fired radio presenter Danny Baker after he tweeted, following the birth of the couple’s son Archie last year, a picture of a chimpanzee holding hands with a couple. He captioned it “Royal Baby leaves hospital.”

Last month, This Morning presenter Eamonn Holmes attacked Markle as “awful, woke, weak, manipulative, spoilt and irritating … I look at her and I think, ‘I don’t think I would like you in real life.’” 

CUCA has a history of inviting figures from the right of the political spectrum, including Jacob Rees-Mogg, Godfrey Bloom, Arron Banks and Peter Bone.

Former chairmen of the CUCA include Ken Clarke (Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1993-97), Douglas Hurd (Foreign Secretary from 1989-95), and Norman Lamont (Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1990-93).

CUCA did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Oxford Applies for Funding to Become Britain’s First All-Electric Bus City

William Atkinson
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Oxford Applies for Funding to Become Britain’s First All-Electric Bus City

A collective bid for funding by Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council, the Oxford Bus Company, Arriva and Stagecoach to the Department of Transport, could see Oxford become the first city in England to be using a fleet of all-electric buses. 

This is part of a new scheme by the Department of Transport to give out up to £50 million to the successful town or city to go towards the financing of a modern fleet of all-electric buses. The aim is to reduce emissions in congested towns and cities with public transport that’s both up-to-date and less polluting. The “All-Electric Bus Town” initiative is an attempt to see what can be done if there is a genuine commitment to running all buses in an area by electricity, in the interests of making a zero-carbon future more affordable. 

Applying for the funds means participating in a competition of two phases. The first phase opened on February 6th and remains open until April. A shortlist will then be considered in the second phase, ending in August. 

Coming within the framework of the government’s new “national bus strategy”, this is part of a total of £170 million allocated by the government to revitalise bus services by making them more frequent, efficient and environmentally-friendly. These are part of a concerted central government effort to tackle entrenched problems with England’s bus services. 

Alongside seeking funding to go all-electric, Oxford’s councils also plan to apply for £20 million towards the design and promotion of on-demand sharing service for bus rides in both city and countryside areas, designed to give the public more control over their daily journeys. By matching up demand for buses with local people in a more intuitive way than is possible at the moment, it seeks to alleviate the inconvenience of bus scheduling that has often seen many services go into decline. 

This application for funding follows other concerted efforts at improvement in bus services by Oxford City Council in recent years. Since 2018, £2.3 million has been acquired to reduce the toxicity of bus emissions in Oxford from the government’s fund for Clean Bus Technology. Moreover, alongside the County Council, it has announced innovative plans to introduce an Oxford City Zero Emissions Zone, alongside growing bus services, to help ease congestion in the city and contribute to tackling the Climate Crisis. 

According to Councillor Tom Hayes, the council’s efforts in recent years have seen a “drop in harmful nitrogen dioxide levels by an average of 22.7%” due to the investment in ultra-low emission buses. Launching “the UK’s first city centre Zero Emission Zone in December this year” is just another step in achieving the council’s ambition of a Zero Carbon Oxford. Councillors from both the City and County Councils also expressed wishes to take “concerted climate action” alongside a wide-ranging expansion of bus services inside the city and out of it. Balancing commitments to providing efficient services with an environmentally sustainable future is central to their approach. 

The initiatives were also welcomed by the bus companies themselves. According to Phil Southall, manager of the Oxford Bus Company, “stronger bus networks are key to reducing congestion and emissions”.  Tackling emissions and congestions are as much a priority of Oxfordshire’s bus companies as they are of its councils. However, not all were onboard with the plans. One student told Cherwell that they feared an expansion of the bus network, however environmentally friendly, would cause more disruption in the short term, impacting both students and residents of the City and the wider county.

Pete Buttigieg, Rhodes Scholar, performs strongly in Iowa

Imogen Duke
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Pete Buttigieg, Rhodes Scholar, performs strongly in Iowa

Pete Buttigieg has emerged successful in the Iowa caucus, the first vote by the Democratic Party for its Presidential candidate.

It has been announced that Buttigieg received 26.2% of the share of votes with 13 delegates, while Bernie Sanders got 26.1% with 12 delegates. This is the first in a series of state-by-state votes, known as primaries and caucuses.

38-year old Buttigieg attended Oxford University from 2004 to 2007 as a Rhodes scholar, receiving a first class Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics.

He was a member of Pembroke College. While at Oxford, he was editor of the Oxford International Review and co-founded the Democrat Renaissance Project. 

In the American Rhodes Scholars-Elect document from May 2005, Buttigieg expressed his career aspirations as “public service, academia, law.”

He said was eager to begin his studies at Oxford, though “as a Mid-westerner”, he was “concerned about adjusting to the warmer English climate.”

Katharine Wilkinson, author and environmentalist, told The New Yorker last year that Buttigieg was an impressive debater, and “curated this great collection of whiskey from around the world”. 

Jeremy Farris, his old flatmate, told The New Yorker that he taught himself Norwegian through reading a book on the toilet while in Oxford. In the days before his exams, he “boarded a cargo ship – shopping goods across the ocean – to isolate himself before the multiple days of tests.” 

The next hurdle for Buttigieg is the New Hampshire primary, about which he states: “by all indications, we are going on to New Hampshire victorious.” His main contenders are Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.

With the Iowa caucus, Buttigieg is the first openly LGBT+ candidate to earn presidential primary delegates in a major party’s nomination process. While at his caucus watch party, he called his husband, Chasten, the “future first gentleman of the United States.” 

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