Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Blog Page 573

Preview: The Witch of Edmonton – ‘promises a sufficiently sinister experience’

Reem Ahmed
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Preview: The Witch of Edmonton – ‘promises a sufficiently sinister experience’

If, like me, you have an unhealthy penchant for ghost stories, but the paranormal scene at Oxford just isn’t quite cutting it for you, then fear not – Hoof and Horn Productions have got you covered. Their fresh take on the 17th century classic The Witch of Edmonton, which heads to the BT Studio in Seventh Week, promises a sufficiently sinister experience for any self-professed lover of the macabre.

Anyone familiar with the original tragicomedy (written by Thomas Dekker, John Ford and William Rowley) will know that it follows multiple stories. At the core, we have the story of the eponymous witch, Elizabeth Sawyer, an old woman who turns to witchcraft after a wrongful accusation (with the help of the devil in the form of a dog, naturally). Other stories include that of Frank Thorney (who is forced to enter a bigamous marriage, and ends up murdering one of his wives) and of the morris-dancing Cuddy Banks.

Writers and directors Bertie Harrison-Broninski and Felix Morrison’s take is ambitious and radical: plucking out Elizabeth’s story, they have put it at the forefront of their production, and constructed a new narrative around it. As is clear from the first scene I preview, their new narrative is highly original and entertaining: to my delight and surprise, in the unlikely location of the Baring Room in Hertford College, I am treated to a ghost tour. Tasha Saunders is highly convincing as our eccentric ghost tour guide, who summarises the mythology surrounding the witch at the beginning of the play. With the aid of a brilliant script, her performance is compelling, and she singlehandedly delivers one of the most captivating opening scenes in a student play I have seen so far. “Are you a believer or do you believe?” she asks, her eyes shifting and widening almost manically, her voice rising and falling to a raspy whisper throughout her speech.

A striking aspect of Harrison-Broninski and Morrison’s production is its employment of multimedia. For example, Saunders’ first monologue (one of three throughout the play) will be delivered to the audience on video. For me, considering how well Saunders commanded the physical stage, this decision is quite surprising; I look forward to seeing on the night whether the video is as effective as the physical performance I witness. Sure to please any lovers of musicals in the audience, I am told that there is also dancing and original music (composed by Toby Stanford) throughout, and the first instance of this precedes Saunders’ opening monologue. Though I am not lucky enough to preview the opening dance, Stanford grants me a taste of the music which accompanies it with an impressive performance on the piano. The music being somewhat dissonant, brooding and at times almost joyful, I anticipate the dance will also be suitably weird and wonderful.  

The other two scenes I preview are equally as compelling. In the first, a distressed Elizabeth (Lowri Spear), having just been abused by her local community (“I am shunned and hated like a sickness,” she laments), expresses her desire for revenge. So this scene heralds her descent into world of the occult as she imagines what it would be like to be a powerful witch. Spear looks appropriately witch-like in a hooded red cloak, a circular arrangement of sticks and logs on the ground nearby reinforcing the supernatural atmosphere.

However, from this scene, as well as the final one I preview, it is Sam Gledhill’s performance as the devil-dog which is the one I am most excited to watch on the night. Simultaneously coercive and friendly towards Elizabeth, the devil-dog is a complex, shifting character in the narrative, his presence rather terrifying and his relationship with the witch unsettling. The role is undoubtedly a challenging one, but Gledhill fully embraces it. With a black dog mask covering his entire face, Gledhill moves with remarkable ease on all fours across the stage, speaking in a low, growling voice.

Aware of the misogynistic undercurrent of the original play, and the fact that, like their predecessors, they are two men telling a woman’s story (a story which is based on true events), Harrison-Broninski and Morrison are particularly conscious to convey a sympathetic view of Sawyer’s story in their take on The Witch of Edmonton. It is clear their production is much more than merely a ghost story. They have constructed a kaleidoscope of perspectives throughout the play, encouraging their audience to think about authorship and who’s telling a story. Considering how much work they’ve put into adapting the play, throughout the preview Harrison-Broninski and Morrison are remarkably modest – though I am sure the audience in 7th week will agree with me that the feat of their undertaking deserves great praise.

The Witch of Edmonton is on at the BT Studio from Tues 11th until Sat 15th June (Seventh Week)

The long read: the libertarian links of a private tuition programme

Libby Cherry
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The long read: the libertarian links of a private tuition programme

Academic freedom is being threatened at Oxford University, but its opponents are not ‘snowflake’ students. Rather, it is happening behind closed doors as part of a global attempt by a small sect of libertarians to, if not create a political hegemony, then at least to exercise undue influence over those in power: legislators, policymakers, and, most insidiously, students and academics.

In the US, this influence over higher education institutions has been well-documented: The Atlantic and investigative journalists at the Center for Public Integrity have charted the interconnections between ideological ‘anarcho-capitalists’ and oligarch climate change deniers, who are using strategic donations, grants, and fellowships at American universities to create an army of the politically sympathetic to “to infuse politics and government with free-market principles”.

Their meddling in university curricula has sparked the UnKochMyCampus campaign, which provides advice for students and academics who fear their institutions are at threat from donor interference. They found that in 2017 alone, Koch-affiliated foundations had spent $62.24 million on 296 individual university campuses. Now this mission has spread beyond US borders, in the form of ‘study abroad’ programmes. Revolving around a single political ideology, these programmes have co-opted the Oxford brand to entice US students to enrol in their narrow-minded curriculum, making an experience at one of the top universities in the world conditional upon an exclusive education in a single political opinion.

There is no reason for the majority of Oxford students to be aware of the Oxford Study Abroad Programme or the Washington International Studies Council, as it is known in the US. Working with Magdalen, New, Christ Church, and Trinity, OSAP acts as an intermediary between US students and these specific colleges, facilitating placements as Associated Members or Visiting Students for up to a year. While the details of the curricula for these studentships aren’t included on the website, OSAP also runs ‘Specialised Summer Programs’. Whilst these ‘Programs’ use college facilities and are often instructed by handpicked Oxford academics, students are taught using custom reading lists and lectures developed by the “faculty leaders” of the programmes, as Academic Director Tim Moore explained, without ‘interference’ from OSAP itself.

Nor does OSAP’s educational scheme show evidence of being overseen by the central University or departments. An Oxford University spokesperson said: “Colleges may choose to allow external groups to use their facilities under the ‘associate member’ category. The Conference of Colleges has its own guidelines on associate membership. Associate members are not Oxford University students, and colleges do not have any academic oversight of these students or responsibility for their academic programmes. However, colleges only enter into agreements with intermediary companies that offer academic programmes of good standing.” In a similar vein, Oxford’s North America Office told me staunchly that there was “no connection between OSAP and any of our staff or board members”.

Magdalen College declared that it “has no association with [OSAP], and the only associate members it accepts through an intermediary are those welcomed as part of a programme with Stanford University. The College accepts a small number of Visiting Students (not associate members) each year who have been recommended to it by WISC, in accordance with the Code of Practice for Visiting Students agreed by Council and the Conference of Colleges.”

Not only does this seem a singularly irresponsible model, a closer look at OSAP’s sample lectures, lecturers, and academic advisors reveals a highly commercialised organisation aimed at pushing a far-right agenda that is not only similar to those being propagated in the US but is directly funded from the same Koch sources. Astronomically expensive (costing up to $71,700 for one academic year), yet without giving students any form of official qualification beyond the ‘Oxford experience’, these programmes clearly do not prioritise the educational principles of research accuracy or academic freedom.

OSAP is the brainchild of the late Chicago-trained economist, Robert L. Schuettinger, whose deep involvement in the day-to-day running of OSAP’s summer programmes is evidenced not only by the eulogistic description of ‘Our Founder’ on its main website, but his repeated inclusion as a lecturer on both OSAP’s International Relations Programme and the Reagan-Thatcher Lecture Series (formerly known less discreetly as the Conservative and Libertarian Thought Programme). Trained under Friedrich Hayek in the 1950s, the European Conservative’s glowing obituary indulgently describes the former Reagan presidential aide’s “irascible personality and politically incorrect utterances” alongside his lifelong commitment to inspire “intellectual counter-revolution to cement the role of classical liberal ideas”.

In amongst the sycophancy, the eulogy reveals a rather tumultuous career, following highs of publishing the influential criticism of government fiscal intervention Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls with Adam Smith Institute co-founder Eamonn Butler, and lows of being fired from his job at Lynchberg College, Virginia by “tenured radicals” who had “tended to the left in the anti-Vietnam and Watergate era”. At Oxford, Schuettinger was an Associate Member of Christ Church, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University’s Rothermere Institute from 2013-14.

All this goes to confirm that Schuettinger is not just your ordinary Oxford-phile. Indeed, he is firmly ensconced in the Koch nexus. Not only was he Director of Studies at US conservative thinktank the Heritage Foundation, which received $300,000 from the Koch-affiliated organisations in 2013, he was also a contributor to the Mises Institute’s online journal. The Institute’s board of directors includes Bob Luddy, who founded the Thales Academy, a chain of private schools teaching “free-market economics” to school pupils and has attended at least two Koch donor summits.

The Institute also plays a starring role in UnKoch’s Advancing White Supremacy report, which describes countless concerning episodes with Institute-affiliated academics, noting most shockingly the ‘Neo-Nazi’ rhetoric of its director, Jeff Deist, in his description of the importance of “blood and soil and God and nation” and the banning of Mises Institute Scholar Hans Hermann Hoppe from Reddit after he created a string of memes that featured characters wearing “the yellow-and-black anarcho-capitalist flag, and Nazi flags.”

But perhaps most damningly, Scheuttinger was a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, near-universally considered the most exclusive club of libertarian ideologues internationally. Co-founded by Hayek, the society meet annually to discuss “the fundamental principles of economic society” with members including Charles Koch himself. But Mount Pelerin isn’t merely a convivial old boys’ club: the Society had international ambitions from the outset, with many of its members providing the ideological expertise for General Pinochet’s “radical liberal constitution” for Chile which was implemented following a 1980 military-backed coup.

OSAP’s own affiliates are testament to Scheuttinger’s grand reputation in the libertarian sphere. Edwin Feulner, cited as a member of OSAP’s ‘Academic Advisory Board’, was former President of the Heritage Foundation and member of the 2016 Trump transition team. Last year, the Foundation released a statement celebrating the fact that Trump had adopted two-thirds of the Foundation’s policy recommendations which included withdrawing from UNESCO and the Paris Climate Accord, and increasing military spending. OSAP’s website also includes praise from Texan Public Policy affiliate Ronald Trowbridge, who has formerly argued for the privatisation of universities despite evidence that this allows for the politicisation of education by private funders like the Koch family.

Yet for all Schuettinger’s deep involvement with individuals that have open intentions of hijacking the education system to further disseminate their own ideology, OSAP continuing to be involved in Oxford since 1983 is indicative of dangerous naivety on the part of the University. Even if University officials didn’t give Schuettinger a quick Google, the content and lecturers behind the Specialised Summer Programmes are enough to show that the motivation behind OSAP is not wholly educational.

The International Relations programme, based primarily at New College, gives no overt indication of the course’s libertarian bent, although perhaps its emphasis on the “role of the nation-state” and “rise of ethnic and religions regionalism” [sic] doesn’t make the reality wholly unsurprising. Underpinning the programme is KCL historian Andrew Roberts’ A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900, which is partnered with a lecture on ‘The English-Speaking Peoples under Attack’.

While Roberts said that he did not know his text was being used as part of the programme, he showed familiarity with OSAP programme as “the one that Bob Schuettinger ran in the 1980s.” The book itself was not only derided by Principal of St Anne’s College, Tim Gardam, for its “relentless, coarse polemic”, and belief that “only English virtues that count are those that march to the colours of the full-blooded, neoconservative global nationalism of Donald Rumsfeld and George W Bush”, but also factually incorrect, according to an Economist review, “less a history than a giant political pamphlet larded with its author’s prejudices.”

And these prejudices are not at all benign. In November 2001, Roberts was a guest of honour at a dinner at the Springbok Club for South African expats, which has been described in the Guardian as a “pro-apartheid” group. The Club’s organiser, A D Harvey, gave a speech entitled ‘Towards a New Imperialism’, archived on their website, which described how “third-world minions have been pleased and grateful to receive all the advantages of our civilisation and standards of law and order”. When asked about this association, Roberts said: “I am not nor have ever been a supporter of racial discrimination of any kind, as is very clear from my work.”

Presented on a glossy website complete with videos of vaguely bemused students wandering around Christ Church meadows, the Reagan-Thatcher Lecture Series is OSAP’s “latest offering”, teaching students “the nuances of the “special relationship” between the US and the UK first-hand”. According to Polluterwatch, in 2017 the Lecture Series’ Scholarship Fund received $10,000 from the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, a clear link between OSAP’s ventures and the hundreds of Koch-funded academics and thinktanks in the US. Moore was unable to confirm if the donation was made, claiming the fund was a “wholly separate entity”, but he stressed that “OSAP is not associated in any way with the Koch Foundation.”

The lecturers on the Reagan-Thatcher series are a peculiar brand of Oxford academic, including historians Mark Almond, formerly a lecturer at Oriel College, and Norman Stone, former Chair of Modern History at Oxford and foreign policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher. Both Stone and Almond are affiliated with Oxford-based British Helsinki Human Rights Group. Condemned in the Economist for “noisily defending a grim lot of east European politicians against the imperialism of western do-gooders”, the group recognise that they often draw “starkly different conclusions from other human rights groups” to “present a more balanced view of events in post-communist Europe.

For an instance of these unusual views, take their approach to Hungary. According to the FT, Stone’s latest book Hungary is peculiarly “silent about the epoch-making changes that have taken place under Orban”. Meanwhile Almond, a regular writer for the Daily Mail, wrote about the appointment of the authoritarian leader, defending Orban’s professed favour of ‘illiberal democracy’, saying “what he meant was that the people should get what they voted for and not be blocked by the Eurocrats of Brussels and its judiciary.”

Stone has also been widely criticised for his refusal to recognise the WWI Armenian genocide as such, explaining to the Telegraph, “I don’t believe the Turkish leadership sat down and said, ‘Let’s wipe them all out’”. The original coiner of the term genocide, Raphael Lemkin referred both to the Holocaust and the atrocities in Armenia to define the term. Stone, perhaps coincidentally, lectures at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. When asked about his activities both inside and outside of OSAP, Stone said: “I know nothing of any of this.”

Mark Almond also has his own personal ties with the American libertarian network, acting as an Academic Advisor for the Ron Paul Institute. Another cited lecturer in the ‘sample programme’ is Ted Malloch, who formerly taught at the Said Business School in 2016 and had ambitions to be Trump’s Brussels ambassador. However, these were crushed after the University exposed his claims to be a Senior Fellow at Wolfson College and a Director of a summer school at Pembroke as false. Aside from these potentially credible lies, the FT also revealed that Malloch had boldly – and falsely – boasted of a knighthood and claimed to have been dubbed “a genius” by Margaret Thatcher in his autobiography. Yet for prospective OSAP applicants, Malloch is presented as a worthy ambassador of the University’s educational reputation.

But for all this, what should really worry the University is OSAP’s overwhelming focus on the Oxford brand, exploiting its association mercilessly in the pursuit of its clients. Students at the Reagan-Thatcher Lecture series, OSAP claims, will be taught using the “unique” Oxford tutorial system, attend formal at New College, and Evensong at Christ Church. What makes OSAP “the best overseas study abroad programme in the world” (as its website claims) is not its in-depth research into right-wing politics but its affiliation with the University. The impunity by which OSAP operates, seemingly unscrutinised by the University and unnoticed by students, is clearly evident in this reckless adoption of Oxford’s key features as indicators of legitimacy. So confident of their ‘difference, OSAP grandiosely claims to offer a $200,000 prize to the “the first reader who can describe an equal program anywhere”.

OSAP has come under scrutiny in the past. In 2013, an internal report by the University expressed concerns about how programmes like OSAP “pose a severe reputational risk” to Oxford, given that “the transaction seems to be one of a purely commercial kind” without taking into account students’ academic profile. In 2008, American students complained to Cherwell about the price of programmes like OSAP and feeling tricked into engaging with the intermediary instead of applying to the University directly. Moore claimed ignorance of both criticisms, saying he had “received no complaints about the quality of OSAP’s educational provision or the level of our fees.”

This fatal combination of narrow political ideology, politicised funding, poor educational materials, and questionable lecturers makes OSAP’s course the paradigmatic opposite of academic freedom. Putting aside the fact that their political philosophy encompasses those who have espoused racist, anti-democratic, and elitist viewpoints, simply allowing the University’s name to be associated with completely unregulated educational programmes seems absurd. While one can always claim that the University is in no way affiliated with the programmes beyond the letting of a college room, the failure to recognise that any association will always be internationally interpreted as endorsement is deeply naïve.

Our University needs to take responsibility and wake up to the fact that ‘neutrality’ cannot justify what is really a dangerous lack of critical examination.

A fee hike for international students is deeply unfair

Brian Wong
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A fee hike for international students is deeply unfair

There is nothing accessible about the 10% hike to international student fees. It has recently been announced that the fees for overseas students at Oxford are due to rise by over 10% for more than 40 undergraduate courses.

This change would put many international students in a very difficult position with respect to applying for and studying at Oxford: although this is perhaps only the tip of an iceberg when it comes to the wider difficulties international students face as they seek to pursue their studies here: from porters mistyping ethnic minority students as tourists, to colleges having deeply unfriendly vacation storage policies, to the repeated failures at facilitating the integration of international students who are studying in the UK for the first time.

International students – as is the custom for UK universities at large – pay significantly more than their UK and EU counterparts. For international students, the rates and fees of Oxford, even with all its funding and scholarships, remain disproportionately exorbitant.

Many of my friends who contemplated applying for Oxford eventually settled for other (equally valid, but not their desired) universities back home or elsewhere in the UK. For an institution that brands itself as the apex of intellectual discovery, this is problematic, unfair, and hugely exclusionary. Prospective talents are put off from applying or taking up their offers, because for all the fanfare about funding (especially at undergraduate level), students from abroad find themselves shunned by an unhelpful administration and excluded by prohibitive bureaucracy.

Most current international students find themselves scraping by in order to make their academic and financial ends meet.

I’ll be frank here: I myself had the privilege and fortune of attending the University of Oxford as an undergraduate on a full scholarship from a generous donor. Without the scholarship, I would have struggled with the fees, and that is in spite of my family’s relatively decent finances.

The intuitive response to my observation may be – international students are wealthy: surely, they are far better than domestic students in terms of affording Oxford’s fees. Some may well be.

But not that friend of mine whose parents are retiring soon with limited pensions and heavy mortgages yet to be paid off; nor that friend of mine whose parents sold their only apartment to raise enough money for them to come to England for sixth form and college; nor many amongst the 43% of Oxford’s student population – 17% amongst its undergraduates – who are not UK or EU citizens.

Individuals’ life chances should not be predominantly determined by the resources and prospects of their parents. Meritocracy alone is arbitrary enough; we have no case to introduce a further arbitrary variable that compounds the birth lottery with the wealth lottery.

Perhaps the question is one of feasibility. Yet it would be unfair to dismiss the egalitarian cries here as simply infeasible, because we know full well that what we deem feasible is the product of negotiations and historical processes that have typically excluded international voices and left some of the least represented nationalities erased and silenced.

Finally, Oxford and Cambridge – given their historical snobbery and role in producing some of the finest disastrous governing minds that wreaked such havoc across the world during the colonial era – should recognise that they have core reparative duties to at least offer those with talents and aspirations, born in other countries, a fair chance at entering and thriving in them.

Now the further objection may be – if other countries aren’t doing it, why should the UK? See the classic anti-slack-taking challenge to taking up the burden of mitigating injustices (Miller, Cullity): why should we scratch the backs of other countries’ citizens when they don’t do it for our own?

This mentality is understandable, but misguided. It ignores the fact that citizens – 18 to 21 year olds – often have limited to no say over their countries’ educational policies. It also assumes that just because a problematic practice is currently the norm, we should maintain it as such – for all the fanfare of a post-Brexit, better England, here it becomes ironically reluctant at taking up greater leadership roles and positions as a leading country in the world for education.

Moreover, it isn’t true that all countries charge their overseas students exorbitant fees – and even if their private universities do so, there is no reason why Oxbridge should be allowed to get away with this, given their unique roles as neither fully private nor public.

We do not allow injustice to be committed again merely because it has already happened – why should we let superficial cries of so-called ‘fairness’ drown out the voices of those who would truly need and deserve the opportunities to acquire the world-class knowledge and skills championed by Oxford, very possibly to make a difference to their own countries and the world?

Finally, there’s the objection from local interests: that international students ought to cross-subsidise poor and deserving local students. Yet this claim conflates the claim right of local students with a particular claim upon foreign students.

It reeks of the classic, callous claim that pits white working class against foreign migrants workers. It neglects the fact that it is years of deliberately or incompetently maintained austerity that has left this country’s education infrastructure damaged and its students, youth, and future generations collectively deprived.

Why should we allow the UK government and education establishment to drive us apart, to impose upon us artificial divides at their own convenience? Life’s unfair, you might think. Deal with it.

Sure, but dealing with it should not be akin to remaining silent and complicit, in face of injustice. We can deal with unfairness by removing it.

Because there is nothing more frustrating than the exploitation of ‘local interest’ as a cheap political excuse to dismiss our obligations to strive for greater fairness and justice for all – whether they are students or migrants.

Because wealth is a deeply arbitrary metric in allocating education spaces, which makes current students feel unwelcome and future students feel deterred, thus undermining the meritocratic end objectives of tertiary education.

Because I was lucky, but many are not.

Because international students deserve better. Because we can do better

Oxfordshire County Council vote ‘No confidence’ in Oxford Health

Sam Millward
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Oxfordshire County Council vote ‘No confidence’ in Oxford Health

Oxfordshire County Council have passed a vote of no confidence in the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The decision follows a failure of communication about the closure of a local Community hospital.

Meeting on Friday 31st May, the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) discussed the recent closure of Oxford City Community Hospital, before holding an amended vote of no confidence in the Trust’s use of communicative procedure.

The possibility of the unit closing had been on the table since the previous summer, but was not declared to Oxford health until after the final decision was taken on the 8th May.

In response to this, Oxfordshire County Council convened a meeting of the Overview Scrutiny Committee, confirming the motion of no confidence on the same day that patients were discharged from City Community Hospital.

According to Oxford Health, the HOSC received testimony from “chief operating officer Dominic Hardisty, clinical director Pete McGrane and joint service director of Oxfordshire community services Tehmeena Ajmal, who responded to a volley of questioning”.

“The committee acknowledged the Trust’s grounds for the temporary closure.”

COO Dominic Hardisty told the committee that communication surrounding the issues was not of the standard it “could or should” have been, but cited a fear that staff would leave if the decision was announced, claiming employees may “vote with their feet”.

Hardisty also admitted that the unit had only managed to stay open due to the “extraordinary efforts” of staff members, informing the committee that some employees would work consecutive night and day shifts to cover staffing shortages.

County Councillor Lis Brighouse said she “would not accept” Hardisty’s response: “many of the residents in my ward work on the Churchill site.

“I’ve not met one health professional who would vote with their feet.

“They’re working back to back shifts in a system we know has massive problems. It’s a mess. “I can’t accept that they would vote with their feet.”

Councillor Hilary Hibbert Biles also told Cherwell the committee that the “lack of communication shows a lack of respect”.

The Chairman of HOSC, Arash Fatemain, described the issue as “managed rather than addressed” by Oxford Health.

He went on to say: “In light of the events that have transpired in the past and in particular, some of the decision-making, the committee doesn’t have confidence that there’s a proper understanding of the agreed working principles from Oxford Health.”

As previously reported by Cherwell, the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust temporarily closed its 12 bed City Community Hospital at the end of last month, due to staff shortages.

Half of all nursing posts had been unfilled since 206, with two thirds of posts due to be vacant by the end of the May.

Oxford hospitals are also experiencing an “exodus” of EU workers since the 2016 referendum. 800 EU staff have left Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, over double those that left in the five years preceding 2016.

Oxford Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran said: “The fact that over 800 EU nationals have left our health service since Brexit is deeply saddening.”

Oxford marches for an end to NHS crisis

Rachel Cordery
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Oxford marches for an end to NHS crisis

Hundreds took to the streets last Saturday to protest the state of the NHS.

Under banners calling for action to Oxfordshire’s NHS staffing crisis, protesters marched through the city centre. With the closure of Oxford’s community hospital fresh in people’s minds, the town’s access to medical care was at the top of the list of concerns.

Growing opposition to the privatisation of cancer-scanning services at the Churchill Hospital was exacerbated last month when it was announced the twelve-bed ward in Headington would temporarily close due to a shortage of NHS nurses.

Health campaigners had raised concerns that more than two thirds of nursing posts were vacant by the end of May.

Beyond Oxfordshire, NHS services across the country have been battling a staffing crisis for a number of years.

Extremely high costs of living in Oxford have been cited as the main barrier to attracting new staff.

Latest NHS figures show that the trust employs 5,343 staff with just over 13% of posts being vacant.

Last week, John Drew, Director of Improvement and Culture at Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) told Cherwell: “Recruiting and retaining staff is a challenge both for the NHS nationally and for us here in Oxfordshire.”

Acknowledging the significance of the crisis, Drew went on to say: “We have a clear workforce plan in place for the year ahead which includes ongoing recruitment of international nurses, a significant growth in apprentices, and continued efforts to ensure that OUH is a great place to work so that our existing staff want to stay with us.

“Moreover, we have seen a reduction in staff turnover recently and we want to see that trend continue by retaining our staff and helping them to develop and build their careers here in Oxfordshire.”

Yet as well as the high cost of living, the Oxford University Hospitals Trust, which runs the John Radcliffe and Churchill hospitals, recently revealed that amidst the growing uncertainties of Brexit, a growing number of Spanish nurses were leaving the organisation to go home.

Responding to the worsening staffing crisis, a major expansion and redevelopment of housing for NHS staff in Oxford is being planned.

A plan, submitted to the Oxford City Council in April, involves the demolition of the original hospital accommodation and the creation of an additional 51 homes.

Protestors also marched against the privatisation of cancer (PET-CT) scanning at the Churchill Hospital.

In April, Oxfordshire’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee was presented with a petition, which had amassed 10,000 signatures, opposing the plans. The belief of the petitioners is that privatisation of such services would mean that the NHS would become an inferior service.

Scanning services for cancer (PECT-CT) have been provided at the Churchill Hospital since 2005. In a meeting between the UOH and the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (HOSC), it was decided that the matter would be referred to the Secretary of State for Health.

The OUH told Cherwell that due to the decision “no changes will be made to the current PET-CT service at the Churchill Hospital while this process is ongoing.”

Following the meeting, the OUH Chief Executive, Dr Bruno Holthof, said: “I would like to thank the Oxfordshire HOSC for agreeing to our request to examine this issue.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the many patients who have contacted us to say how much they value the current PET-CT service at the Churchill. We are grateful for their support and also that of our local MPs and our governors who have spoken out on this issue.”

Pride must be inclusive

Flora Windebank
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Pride must be inclusive

Presuming that you’re living in the 21st century, you will be aware that June is Pride Month for the LGBTQ+ community. Pride is a time for celebration and, as is in the name, pride for the community itself. And yet every year the same age-old question arises: should straight people be allowed to march?

The history of Pride is understandably both an empowering and heartbreaking subject. Pride originated in New York in 1969, with a riot at the Stonewall Inn following one of the raids that often occurred in LGBTQ+ friendly spaces. These raids were frequently intrusive – anyone in feminine clothes would have to prove their female anatomy to police officers – and it was at this point that the tolerance limit of this discrimination had been reached.

It’s quite easy now to forget why Pride exists, or why there is still a need for it to exist (straight pride has been demanded by allegedly “oppressed” cisgender heterosexuals for over 30 years). Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and with the increased visibility of the LGBTQ+ community has emerged an increase in the voices of what is either blatant homophobia or simply an ignorant refusal to empathise. So, when various members of the community resist allowing straight people to march with us, this should come as no real shock. The reasoning is clear: straight people cannot relate to our history, have not experienced discrimination in the way we have, are not explicitly part of the LGBTQ+ community and may even oppose its legitimate existence.

Pride is a time for the LGBTQ+ community, the moment when we can come together to show that we exist and that we deserve to exist. For some, to share this is to loosen the link to our history and to others in our community. Is there much sense in allowing people whose existence goes unquestioned for 12 months of the year and who effectively have 11 straight pride months, to march with those who are celebrating the time in which they can forget the toxic shame that has caused a repression of their innate nature and identity?

My answer, despite the above, is yes; there is always sense in allowing straight people to march in Pride. In fact, there is far more sense in allowing them to march than rebuking their presence entirely.

As has already been established, Pride is a time for the LGBTQ+ community to be openly proud of their identities. This has now become not simply a march to end the harassment and belittling of the community, but a march for acceptance. Self-acceptance, yes, but also acceptance from those outside our community.

We expect, justifiably, to be integrated into a society in which 90 percent of people identify as straight. We are a minority. We do not have the power to be exclusionary. If there is to be acceptance, there must also be the recognition that this applies to our actions towards those outside the LGBTQ+ umbrella.

In excluding straight people, and by ‘straight people’ I am talking about straight allies rather than those with exclusionary views themselves, from celebrating our identities we only marginalise ourselves further. We extend the separation and misunderstandings between the two. The irony of demanding to be a part of society and then actively seeking to shelter ourselves from said society is frankly ridiculous.

I do not dispute that Pride should center around the LGBTQ+ community, and in attending any straight allies should be fully aware of this. However, the solution to all our discriminatory issues and subconscious bias toward cisgendered heterosexuality does not come in the form of the insular surroundings of only those inside the community. I return to the issue of reactions; if we act in this way for the one month we are given to freely express ourselves, what do we expect from the other eleven months in which our straight contemporaries dominate? Just as we feel resentment and anger from the varying exclusivity of society, so would any straight ally who is rejected from showing their support.

And it is this support that is so vital in our fight for acceptance. We fight for equality and inclusivity; why divide when we are given a choice? Why would the 90 percent of the population who do not identify as LGBTQ+ include us, the clear minority, if we can’t even include those who fully support our rights? The point of Pride, as the name would suggest, is to be proud of who we are. How can we do so if we do not have the support of others, if we are continuously shamed and dehumanised?

We are not equal yet – we have much further to go. But we are much, much stronger if we act as a combined potential rather than with solely the remaining 10 percent of the population.

With this being said, there is a certain level of conduct that should be upheld by straight allies when attending Pride. It is an enjoyable event that should be welcoming to everyone, but that is not to say the history behind it takes a back foot. To all of us celebrating Pride this month, there is a deeper meaning that an enjoyable afternoon with music and alcohol should not distract us from. This is a time for humans as a whole to support each other as equals, to show our solidarity no matter what identity or sexual persuasion.

Read our history, take from it what you will, and please, celebrate it with us.

Oxford researchers develop AI machine to think like humans

Rachel Cordery
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Oxford researchers develop AI machine to think like humans

Researchers at Oxford University are attempting to recreate human thinking patterns in machines, using a language guided imagination (LGI) network.

Their work could inform the development of artificial intelligence (AI) that is capable of human-like thinking.

AI machines can now recognise images and process language, but this “continual” or imaginative thinking ability is only restricted to humans, at the moment. These machines are unable to understand and interpret language in the same way and with the same depth as humans.

The “human thinking systems” have a cumulative learning capacity that accompanies them as their brain develops. This system is associated with the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for memory processes that take place as people are performing a task.

Human thinking requires the brain to understand a particular language expression and use it to organise ideas in the mind. The human brain is able to generate mental images guided by language.

For example, if a person notices it is raining, they would internally say, “I need an umbrella” before deciding to get an umbrella. As the thought travels through the brain, they will automatically understand what the visual input means, and how an umbrella will prevent them from getting wet.

While AI machines would be able to recognise the raindrops, there would be no similar thought process to link the rain with the need for an umbrella.

Feng Qi and Wenchuan Wu have used the model of a prefrontal cortex to create an artificial neural network, in an attempt to reproduce human-like thinking patterns in machines.

Qi told Cherwell: “I think this work may open a new page of AI.” In their paper, ‘Human-like machine thinking: Language guided imagination’, they wrote: “We proposed a Language guided imagination (LGI) network to incrementally learn the meaning and usage of numerous words and syntaxes, aiming to form a human-like machine thinking process.”

The LGI network developed by Qi and Wu has three key subsystems: a vision system, a language system, and a synthetic prefrontal cortex.

The vision system contains an encoder that unscrambles the input or imagined scenarios into abstract population representations, as well as an imagination decoder to recreate imagined scenario from higher level representations.

The language system imitates the part of the brain which extracts quantity information and converts binary vectors into text symbols.

The final component, which also imitates a part of the brain, is the pre-frontal cortex (PFC) which combines inputs of both language and vision representations and predicts text symbols and manipulated images.

Further research of the LGI network could lead to the development of more advanced AI, which is capable of more complex human-like thinking strategies.

Qi told Cherwell: “I think this work may open a new page of AI.

“LGI has incrementally learned eight different syntaxes (or tasks), with which a machine thinking loop has been formed and validated by the proper interaction between language and vision system.”

“The paper provides a new architecture to let the machine learn, understand and use language in a human-like way that could ultimately enable a machine to construct fictitious ’mental’ scenario and possess intelligence.”

Union candidate dropped from slate for “colonialism is underrated” JCR motion

Christopher Sinnott
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Union candidate dropped from slate for “colonialism is underrated” JCR motion

A student standing to be elected to the Oxford Union Secretary’s Committee has been sharply criticised by members of his JCR for submitting a motion tabled in the agenda that claimed “colonialism is underrated”.

The motion, which calls for a “Declaration of War on St. Edmund’s Hall”, was posted in protest in the Queen’s JCR Facebook group by a member who asked “how and why a motion including the phrase ‘colonialism is underrated’ is being heard”.

The member went on to point out that “historical and present-day imperialism resulting in cultural and actual genocide isn’t particularly funny” and that “not all of us see the impact of global colonialism as something that can be joked about, and when your immediate family are still regularly endangered by the lasting ramifications of colonialism in your country, perhaps you can speak on it”.

The post called for the withdrawal of the motion from the meeting’s agenda and for a “public apology from the proposer and seconder”. The member who brought the motion to the JCR’s attention declined to give further comment on the incident.

The controversial comments appear to be particularly troubling as the fresher that tabled the motion has filed an application to stand as a secretary’s committee candidate. Cherwell understands that he was selected to do so as part of Amy Gregg’s “Unlock the Union” slate.

In response to the controversy, Gregg confirmed that the student “will not be a member of the Unlock the Union team. I hope the Queen’s College deals with him appropriately”.

In a statement, the fresher told Cherwell: “On 9th June, I submitted a motion to the Queen’s College JCR for a constitutional meeting, with the motion being for the purposes of ‘declaring war on Teddy Hall’ – a joke inspired by another JCR’s declaration of war on their own MCR. Having missed the deadline for submissions on Friday, I hurriedly drafted my motion, found someone to second it and sent it to the Chair via email, asking that it still be included despite its tardiness.

“My seconder had absolutely no clue to any of the contents – only that it had to do with war with Teddy Hall, and simply seconded as a favour to me. This was entirely my motion; I alone saw it before sending it off.

“It later came to my attention that the section with ‘colonialism is underrated’ could be construed as in very bad taste, and was something that should not belong anywhere near a JCR motion, not least when a post was made to our JCR Facebook page laying bare my transgressions. The comment was meant as a joking justification for taking over another college ‘for their own sake’, but I see now that it was seen as an inappropriate and even offensive inclusion to many.

“Indeed, I barely gave that point much thought at all. I profusely apologize for this – my only intention was to entertain, but I see now I crossed a line I should not have, something I was blind to see when writing and sending in the motion. Most of all I apologize to my college and especially my seconder, who did not deserve to get wrapped up in this as a result of my action.

“As a result of this I have since asked for the entire motion to be removed from the meeting, having realized my mistake and error in judgement, and would ask for your forgiveness for my transgression.”

In response to the controversy, Queen’s College JCR President Ebrubaoghene Ayovenefe wrote a Facebook post to all JCR members in which he strongly condemned the motion.

Ayovunefe wrote: “I can’t believe I actually have to say this in the year of our lord two thousand and nineteen, but the Queen’s College JCR does not endorse imperial apologia, nor does it in any way support the view that it was ‘underrated’.

“One of two things is true. The article point of the motion in question (which has since been withdrawn) was written with either i. little to no forethought on what was being said when that ‘joke’ was written, thus demonstrating a frankly astounding ignorance of the inherent violence of colonialism, its consequences on the peoples who suffered under the colonial project, and their descendants still reeling today from its aftershocks; in which case, I would kindly invite the proposer and seconder to, after sincerely apologising to the JCR, educate themselves on the British imperial project and how it much contributed to the comfort which they enjoy as residents of this country, relative to the descendants of Britain’s imperial subjects. If the two are finding such particularly difficult, I can provide some recommendations for reading, or I could let them know what it is to be a native of a country Britain used as its imperial whipping boy for almost a century.

“Or ii. the proposer and seconder knew all of the above and, in the name of ignorance, a “joke” or needless provocation, decided they just didn’t care; in which case, I would rather less kindly invite them to examine the faults of their own characters and begin to work on developing a degree of sympathy for others, and a thorough understanding of why such comments are not only resoundingly insensitive to the natives of former colonial nations (such as myself, for one) but why it is not their place to make such a mockery of colonialism, but rather their place (and, indeed, their moral imperative) to educate themselves on and involve themselves with the various decolonial efforts taking place in social and academic spheres.

“An apology is not enough if it is engendered merely by the collective censure of one’s peers, rather than a more profound understanding of how one has erred.”

Speaking to Cherwell, Ayovunefe defended the JCR committee, saying: “until Hilary Term of 2018 the vetting process allowed for motions to be discussed or dismissed at the discretion of the JCR Chair, a power which was removed from our constitution on the grounds of its potential for undemocratic abuses of power, and one which we will consider restoring in the light of this motion.

“This article point in question and the levity with which it was included in the motion point not only to a frankly ubiquitous ignorance of the colonial project and its legacy, but also to the outright denialism of this legacy’s effects, which occur at the level of both the personal and institutional.

“I need only gesture to Professor Nigel Biggar’s ‘Ethics and Empire’ project to demonstrate how normalised imperial apologia is both in Oxford and in society at large, and how reflexive attempts to whitewash the extent to which the standard of living Britain enjoys are a consequence of its position as a former colonial power have become in the wake of the historical revisionism of Empire.”

Is English football being overtaken by the far-right?

Tilly Walters
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Is English football being overtaken by the far-right?

At the England-Netherlands Nations League semi-final on 6th June, EDL founder Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) was filmed punching an England fan outside the stadium in Portugal. This is more significant than a reflection of the toxicity and violence that has defined our political landscape in the three years since the EU referendum. Central to national character, football (whether club or international) represents a crucial part of English society.

Nationalist rhetoric has always found a home in football. The Italian ultras have had close historic links to Neo-Nazi gangs and far-right fascist groups; fans have territorial tendencies, and fierce identification with a team. The intensity of the ultras of Italian teams like Lazio or Roma demonstrate an obsessive operation that has paramilitary links in their establishment in the early 1960s. Most recently, an Inter fan was killed during clashes with Napoli in December 2018; Tottenham fans were stabbed by  Lazio ultras in 2012. The violence and idelogy go hand in hand, with posters of Mussolini and Hitler, as well as racist and anti-Semitic rife within the clubs and their supporters. Outside of the ultras’ own fan action, the wider control over clubs has political links – Italy’s controversy-racked ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi held the controlling share in A.C. Milan for 31 years up to 2017. 

The over-amalgamation of fascist politics and football is a combination that asks for chaos. The association with politically motivated violence has prompted the presentation of football matches as hostile atmospheres. It has taken more than 25 years to counter falsehoods about the Hillsborough disaster – spread by the police involved – and feelings of hurt and injustice still justifiably run deep. Football is becoming entrenched within British identity politics and threatens to become caught in the politicisation of almost every element of British everyday life.  

It could have been the heatwave, the blissful distraction from political chaos, but the 2018 World Cup seemed like it was part of a positive change to the reputation of English football. The euphoria of the first semi-final appearance in 28 years signalled a new and fresh approach, manager and set of players; it did seem, for a brief second, that football really was ‘coming home’. There was positive patriotism and unity in a country divided by bitter European tension. Henry Winter commented that ‘England gave the nation hope of a better future, and not only on the field of play’ and this was certainly accurate. In pubs around across the country, with complete strangers tensely watching Kane’s flawless shots or England’s first penalty shootout win, it seemed that Brexit-brutalised Britain had finally found a collective love. Waistcoat sales soared, the players themselves participated in the social media frenzy surrounding the competition. Everyone was keen to have something to do with the sun-bathed positivity of the team’s careful campaign. Despite media expectation with the World Cup being held in Russia, the mood was overwhelmingly optimistic throughout.

This unification was significant for a reason – the team represented the best of the UK, diverse, multicultural and young, yet heralded by tradition; their manager, Gareth Southgate, is an ex-England player himself with a significant international record. The team masterfully banished the negativity and criticism that had trailed the national team for years, but it seems like the positivity of that summer has been overtaken by division once again; football may be returning to a place of violence and division, representative of a stereotyped aggressive patriotism bordering on nationalism. Yaxley-Lennon’s presence at an international game, overpowering the neutrality of the sport-loving majority, signals a shift as English culture and society becomes dominated by political suggestion.

The Football Spectators Act allowed for the barring of specific fans for violence, racism, threats and almost any criminal behaviour connected with the attendance of a football match. Yaxley-Lennon was, in fact, briefly banned under public disorder before the case was dropped. Legal framework around antisocial behaviour related to the support of teams has tried to distance what seems like the twin concepts of football and disorder that have defined the game for decades.

England fans have a poor reputation for international behaviour. Their attitude is defined more by occupation than encouragement, leaving a bitter taste on wins or losses. Consistently, England fans at away games will be at fault for violence, rowdy behaviour or racist language. It isn’t every fan, but those who bring English football into disrepute seem to view it as their duty. Southgate branded such supporters ‘an embarrassment’ after their behaviour in Portugal, conveying worries about future UEFA games and fans’ behaviour. Following the positivity of the World Cup, it seems as though the English game is regressing with the return to violence at international games.

There were reports of fans at the game wearing clothes with EDL logos; the national team clearly wishes to distance itself from such ideology. This is ‘tarnishing’ them with the  ‘wrong atmosphere’ as the head of England security described. It seems that year after year (a game in the Netherlands in 2018 had similar activity), the group of away fans that sing racist songs, behave violently and get arrested are attempting to keep football grounded in its less pleasant past.

The 2018 World Cup team was the most ethnically diverse team to ever represent England; 11 out of 23 members were non-white. Such stats represent the tangible change within football, with a team more truly representative of the positivity of England’s diversity. To have EDL supporters defining the team’s image with racist behaviour seems incongruent with the promising change that Southgate’s squad has brought. Football is one of the most uniting elements of ‘Englishness’, with 75% of respondents to a British Future survey (both white and ethnic minority) feeling that English football represented national identity – the same cannot be said about other truly ‘English’ (i.e. not just British), components of identity, such as the St. George flag.

The ‘Football Lads Alliance’ is a prime example of football-associated patriotism turned sour. A group formed in 2017 as supposedly ‘anti-extremist’, it has instead been suggested to give a cover to the far-right, with Yaxley-Lennon and other EDL figures present at their march against extremism in October 2017. A group that could have a positive message has instead been overtaken by the loud minority. There were reports of Islamophobic abuse on their Facebook page and aggressive confrontation of counter-protesters (with anti-Islamophobia signs and banners) at their march. Similarly, the Casuals United, a far-right protest group composed of football supports, has targeted Muslim groups in their protest action. 

Amongst global teams, and even other English nationals, the anti-England backlash is so prevalent that it has spawned a movement, ‘Anyone But England’. This has encouraged a wider trend of English football fans disavowing the behaviour associated with their national team. English football should not be relinquished to the minority that have soured the sport. If football’s increasing diversity and inclusiveness proves anything, it’s that it inspires positivity and community, bringing a country together even in the middle of political turbulence. Far-right figures within English and British politics threaten the cohesion and unity that sport can provide.

Staging Invisibility

Lou Lou Curry
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Staging Invisibility

What does it mean to be a hustler? The answer you get will, for the most part, depend on who you’re asking – the response, however, is generally negative. If you look it up on Urban Dictionary (reputable, I know) the answer is simply “someone who knows how to get money from others.”

Pop culture, on the other hand, offers us a treasure trove of answers. In his pièce de résistance ‘Hustlin’’, rapper Rick Ross offers us, in my humble opinion, the most comprehensive or academic introduction to the etymology and nuances of the word ‘hustler’.

Ross is not the only artist to have exploited the word for entertainment purposes, inverting and exploring a term which so often has, in the dictionary definition at least, negative connotations. One only has to recall the halcyon days of 2008 for Beyonce’s hot take on the matter in her hit ‘Diva’, where she posits that a ‘diva’ is actually a female version of a ‘hustler’ – thrilling stuff.

Even kids’ ‘TV is not devoid of the odd reference to the ‘hustler’ – looking even further back to 2004, in a now iconic episode of Drake & Josh, Drake is branded a ‘hustler’ after he takes advantage of Josh’s billiard skills and swindles people out of their money.

Despite the idea of the ‘hustler’ being so firmly ingrained in pop culture, then, there is surprisingly little about a specific type of hustler – that is, the ‘hustler prostitute’. Though perhaps this is not that surprising after all – these ‘hustlers’ were practically invisible. Their race, sexuality and disabilities, among other things, as well as their choice (or, rather, lack thereof) of profession leave them invisible to the masses. To find the ‘hustler prostitute’ culturally or historically is certainly hard work – though not quite impossible. However, to find representations of the ‘hustler prostitute’ through an intersectional lens or in a context where they are not fetishised and simultaneously degraded is impossible. (Or at least it was until I discovered FX’s Pose halfway through writing this – but, even then, that is still only one show in a great sea of media.)

My original play Hustlers constitutes my response to the lack of representation of this invisible group – a response which has been four years in the making. Inspired by Philip-Lorca diCorcia’s Hustlers, a photo book depicting the “hustlers” on the streets of LA, I was determined to offer an honest take on the industry and discover more about these often forgotten faces. My exploration of their lives emboldened me: I wanted these narratives (especially the LGBTQ+ and BAME narratives which are often suppressed or neglected by the media) to be acknowledged. Hustlers is based on the lives of actual survivors, and I am proud to say their voices will be heard: the play debuts at the BT Studio next week, before its run at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Offering an intersectional view on sex work in the 1980s, Hustlers is set during the AIDS and drug crisis. The play focuses on the lives of four individuals, aged between sixteen and twenty-four, as their lives continuously intertwine and collide. Exploring challenging themes – from addiction to struggles with sexuality to sexual assault – each narrative offers a glimpse into another world, one not that far from our own: the streets. I wanted this play to offer an intense examination of the mental and physical consequences of sex work, the extreme pressures these individuals are put under, and the methods they adopt to gain a release from their own realities.

Writing the script and conveying its intended message to my audience was no easy task. How was I supposed to rectify almost forty years of looking the other way in a forty minute show? How could I encourage my audience to think with an awareness of intersectionality? How do I stage the invisibility these four characters felt?

Yet, when it came to this idea of ‘staging invisibility’ I realised I was asking myself the completely wrong question. Instead of focusing on the years of marginalisation, how could I celebrate diversity? How could I bring it to the very forefront of my production? How could I stage these narratives in the most visible way possible?

There have been some valiant and successful attempts to challenge the lack of diversity in the Oxford drama scene: for example, Medea at the Keble O’Reilly last Trinity, which had an all-BAME cast and crew; similarly, My Mother Runs in Zig-Zags at the North Wall earlier this term, also with an all-BAME cast. However, I still think it is currently still not diverse enough and more can be done.

But while all can safely agree that the Oxford drama scene can become more diverse, how one should go about doing so is admittedly difficult to ascertain. Nowadays merely an empty buzzword, the meaning of ‘diversity’ is so nebulous that any attempt to improve it seems like a impossible and daunting task. Diversity in terms of what? Race? Gender? Sexuality? Furthermore, how could I challenge diversity in a way that was not superficial? I ultimately decided to start small, beginning with my own cast and crew.

Indeed, in directing and acting in Hustlers, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how easy it has been to embrace diversity in the production, even if this has improved the overall issue of diversity in the Oxford drama scene only marginally.

Both the director and assistant director (Priya Radhakrishnan and myself respectively) are women of colour. We also have a very diverse cast in terms of race (over a third of our cast and crew are BAME) as well as in terms of sexuality and nationality. Yet, merely listing the various races or sexualities of the cast and crew of Hustlers is a superficial bandaid on the much deeper and darker issue of diversity in theatre – not only in Oxford, but nationally.

I believe the answer to diversity lies in our having the courage to address it – not tomorrow, not in a minute, not when it’s more convenient, but right now. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my experience, it’s that it’s possible to make room for a diverse cast and crew in your productions – no matter what the production and even when it’s easier not to.

This could mean making Lysander and Hermia a lesbian couple in your reproduction of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (as Brasenose did for their arts week a couple of years ago, to great effect), even if it means changing the script; this means deciding to have an all-BAME cast, even if only 1.9% of students Oxford admitted in 2017 were black.

I think this attitude is especially pertinent to new productions, which have a blank slate from which to work. I would encourage any new or aspiring writers or directors to carve out a space in their scripts for diversity – because, with enough momentum, it’s where the future of theatre is headed. Allow yourself to be inspired by the full range of talent and experience Oxford has to offer across the spectrum. As an audience member, open yourself up to new experiences and new narratives. The characters in Hustlers, characters I guarantee are so different from you, invite you to hear them, to explore their history and to delve into their complicated lives.

So come, allow them to be heard.

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