Sunday 24th August 2025
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LOVE/SICK – ‘Your trip to Tesco’s will never seem the same again’

Imogen Harter-Jones
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LOVE/SICK – ‘Your trip to Tesco’s will never seem the same again’

“That sex was the most fun I’ve ever had without laughing.”  When seeing John Cariani’s one-act, nine-play cycle LOVE/SICK, think more of quick-witted lines such as this from Annie Hall rather than twee romcoms. Overflowing with life and energy, Matter of Act brings John Cariani’s play to life in an engaging, fun and memorable experience. Although often categorised as a writer of quirky romcoms, Cariani aptly describes LOVE/SICK as a “very funny tragedy”, dealing more with the problems of love than the ‘happily ever after.’

Set on a Friday night in “an alternate suburban reality” each idiosyncratic ten-minute play tells the story of a different couple at cross-roads in their relationship, these vignettes operating under the overarching themes of love and loss. Co-directors Olivia Marshall and Luke Dunne navigate the comedy, cliché, and melancholy of the sharply written script with skill and verve, highlighting the universal experiences of love, attraction and affection with unconventional delight.  

A strong four-person cast of Sabrina Brewer, Eddie Chapman, Noah Seltzer and Olivia Marshall form a cohesive ensemble, with each playing multiple endearing characters over the course of the nine stories. This combination proves highly effective due to the energy and seamless ability of each to shift across the wildly varying ages, sexualities and personalities of each of the characters that they portray. All have a keen sense of timing and exhilarating, sparky delivery.

From the fearless opening ‘IMPULSE DISORDER’ – set in a large Target supermarket –  it is clear that the wild, messy and complicated nature of love will run wild. Brewer and Marshall inject this scene with forceful excitement, high passion and a sense of intimate urgency. This is fitting for characters suffering from a rarely diagnosed impulse disorder, whose symptoms make them act impulsively: hence, this sizzling make-out scene between strongly attracted strangers in the supermarket. Forget simple eye contact and a shy smile – your trip to Tesco’s will never seem the same again!

These offbeat sketches include a man physically incapable of hearing the words “I love you” from his boyfriend – a phrase that “dazzles” his nervous system into submission. In ‘WHAT?!?’ Seltzer and Chapman heartwarmingly show the bravery needed in the midst of falling in love, and their coy displays and declarations of love are thoroughly charming.

Echoing Simone de Beauvoir’s 1968 novel The Woman Destroyed, ‘WHERE WAS I?’ poignantly examines the female condition, portraying a wife who searches her garage for the self she has lost since marriage and children consumed her existence. In ‘LUNCH AND DINNER’, a Freudian slip (“I had sex for lunch”) results in honest interrogation of intimacy issues for one married couple; in ‘UH-OH’ Marshall, displaying a huge emotional range exudes playful psychopathy – with enigmatic knowing glances and sarcastic tones – as she tries to find the shocking fun in the post-honeymoon period of her marriage.

Each of these stories offers a fast-moving and unique insight into the minefield of modern love, emotional vulnerability, intense attraction, the rules of dating, intimacy issues, breakups, parenthood and problematic marriages. Cariani litters the play with reminders of our 21st century idiosyncrasies.  A married couple tell each other “I’ll send you the link”; a morally conflicted ‘SINGING TELEGRAM’ man (Seltzer) ends a painful breakup by asking a hysterical now-former-girlfriend (Brewer) to “rate my performance”. Then, in an attempt to comfort her, he reminds her: “this is just temporary. Everything is”.

Matter of Act exploit these poignant moments of comedy and, despite the play’s more melancholic moments, the BT Studio was still full of laughter. Love is found and lost in supermarkets and suburban living rooms, but the banal settings are contrasted with the overload of emotion and passion which permeates even the most clinically bright supermarket aisle. LOVE/SICK is full of highs and lows – emotions and passions rise, soar, crash and repeat.

Between the stories, tracks such as Britney Spears’ ‘Oops I Did it Again’ and Talking Heads’ ‘Psycho Killer’ are wittily used as transitions to each new scenario. They tease out themes and gently mock the scene that has just finished, bringing a sense of conclusion to an otherwise abrupt end of scene.

Whether you’re going through an essay crisis, manically revising for Prelims or Finals, or just enjoying Oxford life unencumbered by Trinity Term’s exam season sting, LOVE/SICK provides a captivating, thought provoking and sardonically humorous exploration of complex, imperfect love – the passion and joy of finding it, the pain of losing it, and monotony once the excitement has waned. Yet still as a society we are obsessed with love: just look at the popularity of Oxlove!

In LOVE/SICK love is blind, it was love at first sight, love comes and disappears when you least expect it. Despite these clichéd ideas that all romantic comedies navigate, LOVE/SICK avoids being schmaltzy and is bittersweet rather than over-sweet. It is intelligent and insightful, tender and at times surreal, mocking ideas of conventional love involving passion, honesty and excitement.

Every Brilliant Thing – ‘strikes a staggering balance between serious and joyful’

Evie Atmore
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Every Brilliant Thing – ‘strikes a staggering balance between serious and joyful’

Content warning: discussion of suicide and mental health

For a play beginning with the first suicide attempt of the narrator’s mother, Spare Room Productions’ take on Every Brilliant Thing strikes a staggering balance between serious and joyful. Intrinsically this is a play about loss, about guilt, and about how one continues on after trauma – thankfully these themes are handled with a great deal of nuance and care. However, this production is also hilariously funny, and epitomises the feeling of laughing so you don’t cry.

This is a play about a list: a list of “brilliant things” began by the narrator as a seven-year-old, in order to convince his mother that there are things worth living for. From the first entry of “ice cream”, to later entries like “falling in love” and “sex”, the list grows with the narrator, played by Harry Berry. The list creates a vital synergy between the otherwise episodic scenes from the narrator’s life. The play moves seamlessly between more serious discussions of suicide to lighter topics, like first love, for which director Jamie Murphy ought to be commended.

Harry Berry’s ability to sustain this play is astounding, especially considering the lack of other actors or any real set to aid him. The narrator is a challenging role, requiring both comedic timing and seriousness of expression, but Berry’s performance meets the high bar with a portrayal that is equal parts funny, vulnerable, and compelling. In my view, the character is less strong in the opening sections, but this is largely due to the need to establish the format of the play with its interactive elements.

An outstanding aspect of the play is its employment of audience participation. Each audience member was given at least one “brilliant thing” on a post-it note (or a spoon, or even carved into a baguette) upon entering. By encouraging the audience to read these out when the number was mentioned in the play, the list became ours as well. In a way, describing this play as a one-man show feels slightly disingenuous. Audience members were often brought into the centre to play the other characters in the narrator’s life – his dad, the vet that put down his dog, his girlfriend at university – and these brief moments of improvisation balanced the play’s otherwise serious subject matter. Props were also sourced from the audience, leading to a hilarious discussion of a book on potatoes. The fact that these moments will inevitably be different on each night of the show’s run is a huge draw, and Harry Berry’s abilities as a spontaneous comedic actor particularly shines through during these interactions with the audience.

The production of the play was seamless, in particular the use of music, which is central to the play’s plot. The jazz soundtrack is timeless and enjoyable, and the narrator’s joyful response to it is contagious. Upon entering, the minimal nature of the set was visually striking in contrast with the vibrancy of a stage littered with multi-coloured post-it notes. The arrangement of the audience in a circle also encouraged the feeling created throughout the play that the audience are part of the story, that the list is also ours.

The subject matter of this show is serious, which the cast and Spare Room Productions emphasise before and after the show. Their nuanced and considered approach is a real credit to them. Nevertheless, it should also be noted that the play, whilst not graphic in its depiction of suicide, does discuss some methods and the effect of suicide attempts on others.

For a play about suicide, I left the Pilch thinking about what I would add to the list – and that’s the real beauty of this show. It would be so easy for Every Brilliant Thing to only be morose, and the fact that this production struck the balance so well between uplifting and serious is a testament to its success. I thoroughly enjoyed this play and, if you feel up to the content, I would highly recommend that you grab a ticket for it.

Q&A – a play that ‘takes a turn into the chaotic and absurd’

Katie Knight
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Q&A – a play that ‘takes a turn into the chaotic and absurd’

It is rare that I begin a show literally on the edge of my seat, but this is one of the few occasions I can confidently assert it to be true. On this occasion it would be because I’m stuck next to a particularly unruly elderly lady in a shawl who keeps peering at the stage, sniffing, and at one point almost hits me round the head with a wicker bag. When she starts harassing an actor about the Bridge club and sidles past me to get up on stage, I’m hardly surprised.

‘Sylvia’ is one of just a few quirky characters surreptitiously planted in the audience before the performance starts (the intimacy of the venue captured well by the BT Studio). Billed as an ‘immersive comedy’, Q&A is staged as – you guessed it – a live Q&A after a performance of Salinger’s classic The Catcher in the Rye – a book most famous for a) being entirely narrated by a nihilistic teenager, b) including no action, and c) being vetoed from being performed live. Not the most auspicious start – although this is of course the intention. I’m impressed by the poster-homage (designed by Olya Makarova, who also plays the ditzy Niamh), which bears a striking resemblance to the original book cover, although a sign for a Travelodge is present along with other details I don’t remember being there. I’m assured all will become clear as the performance unravels.

At its most naturalistic and impromptu, the play is hilarious. As the shambolic reimagining of The Catcher in the Rye draws to a close to polite applause (bearing in mind this is within the first three minutes), a muttered “Jesus” from nearby critic Clive Edwards (Jack Blowers) has me laughing more than anything. The voice of reason in a cold, cold am-dram world, he creates a startling impression despite never leaving his seat. There’s a strange sexual tension in the rivalry between himself and ex-Emmerdale star Sebastian (Tom Saer) which I’m not sure is supposed to be there, and which seems to be rooted in something involving a BBC party and cocktail sausages. The details are lost on me.

Isaac Troughton (holding a dual role along with playwright) is similarly fantastic as the 17-year-old drama student Jesse, replete with deadpan snark. Again, there’s a Holden Caulfield joke to be made there – the teenager, out of all of them, comes closest to understanding the protagonist – but unfortunately it’s never quite made explicit. Nevertheless, a scene where the young actor is taught to declaim a line comes close, as the group of actors squabble over whether to step forth on the dramatic word ‘war’ or ‘hell’ for best effect. The moment is a highlight particularly for the ‘veteran’ Jasper (played with aplomb by Stepan Mysko von Schultze), who is vaguely reminiscent of Ralph Fiennes’ parodic turn in Hail Caesar!.

There are some very witty lines, ranging from the misquoting of Robert Frost (“Two paths converged in a yellow wood”), to mysterious allusions to a lawnmower accident, to the downright alarming “Can you sign my coccyx?” from the sweet old lady next to me (masterfully characterised by Fifi Zanabi). Theatre manager Sam (El Wood) rushes around trying to keep the whole thing in line with admirable verve.  If there’s a fault, it’s that sometimes the whole thing feels a little too knowing, which unfortunately detracts from the intended spontaneity. The dialogue doesn’t quite flow smoothly enough to seem fully natural – a hard enough task on stage at the best of times, but needed here to make the back-and-forth fully believable.

It’s a script and show at its best when it takes a turn into the chaotic and absurd; and, as it confidently veers into a spectacular car crash in the last quarter, I can’t help but think that it certainly had not come too soon. Standing at a confident 45 minutes, it’s a short and sweet one-act play which doesn’t beat around the bush. It may not quite reach complete naturalism, but it’s certainly entertaining. Just make sure you check who you’re sitting next to first.

Electrolyte – an energetic fusion of electronica and spoken word

Taiwo Oyebola
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Electrolyte – an energetic fusion of electronica and spoken word

Content warning: discussion of themes of mental health

Electrolyte is a multi-award-winning piece of gig theatre that powerfully explores mental health for a contemporary audience. Written as spoken word poetry and underscored by original music, this explosive production is performed by six multi-instrumentalists who seamlessly integrate live music with expert storytelling.

Part of the steadily growing movement of gig theatre, Electrolyte fuses electronic music with spoken word poetry, and so combines the raw energy of live music with storytelling: in this case, tackling difficult subjects such as suicide and schizophrenia. Bouncing around in her Nike trainers and Adidas jacket getting pumped up for a big night out in Leeds with her best pals, Jessie is a compelling character, and through the hypnotic tangle of words that she delivers, the audience is intimately drawn into the inner workings of her mind. Her world is absolutely dizzying and through her we experience the highest of highs and lowest of lows.

Olivia Sweeney as Jessie is wonderful to watch on stage, and her delivery of James Meteyard’s script is so natural and deeply moving that at times I forgot I was watching a play. It gradually becomes clear that things are not as they seem as we discover that Jessie’s narrative voice is unreliable, leading the audience to question what is real and what is not. In an attempt to escape the monotony of her life in Leeds, she runs off to London with singer-songwriter Allie Touch when she receives a letter from her estranged mother that, seemingly by coincidence, also comes from London.

The entire cast gives energetic performances as both actors and musicians and they work seamlessly together to transport the audience into a variety of different spaces and atmospheres. The rest of the cast are also superb as Jessie’s friends, family and enemies. They aren’t just a backing band or supporting characters but real and sincere and alive in the space too, giving each other little winks and nods, playing with the space in between the action. Special mention must also be made of Maimuna Memon’s stunning musical score, which moves from acoustic folk to pounding drum and bass.

The emotional journey Jessie undertakes, with the audience alongside her, is unfortunately slightly undercut by the somewhat simplistic ending. Severe mental health issues are complex and need to be treated with care, which for the most part this show does very well. Sometimes, a person experiencing a serious mental health condition may not get better after accepting the support of family and friends, although that support is of course invaluable in giving individuals the best chance of managing their illness. The show acknowledges that Jessie’s struggles don’t just disappear overnight, but the neat bow tied on all the narrative threads in the concluding moments does suggest her recovery is undertaken rather easily and quickly, something which those of us who have experienced or witnessed psychological conditions are all too aware isn’t realistic.

Whilst it is undoubtedly important to combat the stigma that still surrounds mental health with a positive message and to educate people that recovery is possible (or where it isn’t then managing the symptoms can allow for happy, successful lives), it is also essential to acknowledge that even with the love of good friends, quality psychiatric care and appropriate medication, things may not be that simple. I couldn’t help thinking that a more nuanced and complex end to the story could have been more effective.

The final message is, however, important. As the play draws to a close Jessie implores us, the audience, to look after the ones we love. To invite someone round for a cup of tea when they’re feeling down, to tell someone they look good today and to simply be there when people need us.

Electrolyte was staged at The North Wall on 2 & 3 May 2019. Future tour dates can be found here.

Oxford says “No!” to Katie Hopkins

Cherwell News
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Oxford says “No!” to Katie Hopkins

Students demonstrated outside the Oxford Union on Thursday in response to far-right activist Katie Hopkins’ invitation to speak that evening.

Hopkins was speaking against the motion “This House supports no-platforming.” She was debating alongside former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe and columnist Toby Young.

Around 50 protesters and police gathered outside the entrance to the Oxford Union before the debate, chanting “Shame on you!” as people entered the building. There were also two pro- Hopkins counter-protesters present.

Cherwell also understands that a student protesting the event was arrested by police of cers and taken into custody. One onlooker claimed that, “someone threw a milkshake at a counter- protester… and was arrested by the police.”

The protest was organised as part of the “Boycott the Oxford Union” campaign. The campaigners also wrote an open letter to the Union calling for them to stop inviting racist and fascist speakers. They wrote: “This is a woman whose hateful views, including comments di- rected at refugees, migrants, Jews, Muslims, the mentally ill and the LGBTQ+ community have led to her being red from LBC Radio. Last year, she was detained in South Africa on the charge of spreading racial hatred.”

They continued: “In January 2019, the Oxford Union played host to Marion Marechal Le Pen, former National Assembly representative for the far-right political party National Rally (formerly known as the Front National). She has accused the Muslim community in France of being aligned with terrorist groups and has repeatedly defended the claim that Muslims are a ‘treach- erous third column’. She has also made frequent hateful statements about France’s LGBTQ+ community and other oppressed groups.

“We call upon the Oxford Union to immediately cease hosting fascists and racists and to remove videos of the following fascist and/or racist speakers from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.

“Until this happens, and until the institution ceases to appease fascists and openly enable the online radicalisation of far-right terrorists, we pledge to boycott all Oxford Union events.”

Before the debate, an elderly woman was escorted off the Union premises for shouting at Hopkins. She was reported as saying “Fascism is not dead.”

The Labour MP Naz Shah was due to speak in support of the motion, but pulled out of the debate the day before the event.

Although Shah has not publicly stated the reason for her decision, according to an email sent to Katie Hopkins by The Guardian and shared by Hopkins on social media, the politician withdrew from the debate because of Hopkins’ participation. She was replaced by the 12th elected Secretary’s Committee member from St Peter’s, Jack Solomon.

Speaking to Cherwell, Union President Genevieve Athis said: “I am very disappointed that Naz Shah MP has dropped out of our No Platforming Debate at such a late stage.

“We have been in contact since the 11th March 2019 and although the speakers for this debate have been public knowledge since the 24th April, she only expressed her unwillingness to speak opposite Ms Hopkins yesterday.

“I think it is a great shame that instead of debating Ms Hopkins in our chamber Ms Shah has decided to not participate altogether and I am sure that many of our members will also be deeply disappointed by this.

“Far from providing either Ms Hopkins or Ms Shah with a platform, the format of our debates is such that any speaker can be held to account either through challenges from the audience or points of rebuttal from other speakers.

“Ms Hopkins will be delivering an eight- minute in speech in this debate as one of eight speakers including Ann Widdocombe [sic] MP and Chief Justice Robert French AC and anyone in the audience will, as is tradition, have the opportunity to challenge any of our speakers on either side of the motion.”

Three of those who were invited to speak at the debate have publicly rejected the Union’s invitation, criticising Hopkins’ invitation and the nature of the motion.

Matthew Feldman, who directs the

Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, responded to the organising committee’s invitation saying: “I refuse to appear on a stage with radical right activists, irrespective of forum.

“This is because I believe, following Popper, that tolerating intolerance is an avoidable danger for liberal democracies – especially in a multicultural society – and giving racists a platform is not something I’m willing to countenance.

“I hope this sole condition is acceptable to you and thank you again for the humbling offer to debate in your esteemed chamber.”

Historian Evan Smith also rejected an invitation to participate in this week’s de- bate, replying to the Union: “Thank you for your email and the invitation to debate at the Oxford Union. However, given the long history of previous invitations extended to racists and fascists by the Oxford Union, I must decline your invitation.”

Smith was not aware of Hopkins’ invitation at the time, but told Cherwell that he supported the new boycott campaign.

Cambridge academic Priyamvada Gopal, who was also unaware of Hopkins’ invitation at the time, rejected the Oxford Union’s invitation, replying by email with a criticism of the motion: “Thank you very much for this. I am afraid I must decline: I don’t like set piece debates on crude motions like this.

“They militate against any form of nuanced argument which, in any case, are always contextually made, not blanket injunctions.”

After the Union’s decision to invite Hopkins was revealed by Cherwell, Gopal wrote on Twitter: “Recently I turned down an invitation from the Oxford Union Soc. They wanted me to speak for the inanely & tendentiously phrased motion, This House Believes in No Platforming. How silly. Now it turns out they’ve invited hardcore racism-monger and bilious bigot, Katie Hopkins.

“One real problem with both Union soci- eties historically is that they don’t seem to understand that debate isn’t a stupid mat- ter of being For or Against Something. This isn’t party politics and it isn’t a school-boys game.

“Fascists kill. Racists kill. Misogynists kill.

“Anyway, all of which is to say that I am now speaking in favour of the motion to boycott the Oxford Union Soc until they re- consider the value of offering platforms for spouting rank bigotry and extermination- discourse. I call on others to do so as well. This is not a game.

“I also call on both Union societies to stop peddling an infant’s idea of debate and free speech, and to start acting as mature institutions in academic contexts with a serious commitment to freedom of inquiry –which is meaningless if it is not combined with commitment to truth.”

She continued: “It wouldn’t matter what two silly little privileged university clubs did–but unfortunately, they are in fact a pipeline to Parliament & that asinine posh boy (and girl) braying that afflicts that mode of discussion, and therefore national politics–which has consequence for us.”

Hopkins was reported by those who attended to have made a notably controversial speech at the Union debate.

The speech, which was in opposition to the motion, included such statements as: “Now I’m basically Mussolini, and I’m alright with that. I’m comfortable with who I am.”

She was also reported to have said, “Boycott the Oxford Union’s aim was to get vegan and associated unemployables to boycott this place” and “Jihadis are meant to blow themselves up to get 72 virgins, which is more than exists in the whole of Oxford.”

In addition to these comments, Hopkins also told one Oxford graduate student who questioned her views: “Darling, you’re not hot.”

Hopkins is the most recent in a series of controversies around speakers at the Oxford Union. Marion Marechal Le Pen and Steve Bannon attracted significant numbers of protesters as well  as condemnation from the City Council.

Naz Shah and Katie Hopkins have been contacted for comment.

Shadow Minister withdraws from Union debate over Hopkins’ participation

Angus Brown
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Shadow Minister withdraws from Union debate over Hopkins’ participation

Labour Shadow Minister Naz Shah has withdrawn from this evening’s Oxford Union debate on no-platforming this evening amidst calls for a boycott of the Union and planned protests.

Although Shah has not publicly stated the reason for her decision, according to an email sent to Katie Hopkins by The Guardian and shared by Hopkins on social media, the politician has withdrawn from the debate because of Hopkins’ participation.

Speaking to Cherwell, Union President Genevieve Athis said: “I am very disappointed that Naz Shah MP has dropped out of our No Platforming Debate at such a late stage. We have been in contact since the 11th March 2019 and although the speakers for this debate have been public knowledge since the 24th April, she only expressed her unwillingness to speak opposite Ms Hopkins yesterday.

“I think it is a great shame that instead of debating Ms Hopkins in our chamber Ms Shah has decided to not participate altogether and I am sure that many of our members will also be deeply disappointed by this. 

“Far from providing either Ms Hopkins or Ms Shah with a platform, the format of our debates is such that any speaker can be held to account either through challenges from the audience or points of rebuttal from other speakers.

“Ms Hopkins will be delivering an eight-minute in speech in this debate as one of eight speakers including Ann Widdocombe [sic] MP and Chief Justice Robert French AC and anyone in the audience will, as is tradition, have the opportunity to challenge any of our speakers on either side of the motion.”

Shah’s decision to take part in the debate follows the creation of a campaign group calling for a boycott of the Oxford Union.

The ‘Boycott the Oxford Union’ campaign earlier told Cherwell: “This term [the Union] are playing host to the far-right commentator Katie Hopkins, who has achieved minor fame by insulting and stoking hatred towards countless oppressed and marginalised groups.

“We pledge to boycott the Oxford Union until it ceases to appease fascism and removes videos of the following fascist and far right figures from their YouTube channel: Tommy Robinson, Steve Bannon, Marine Le Pen, Mahathir Bin Mohamad.”

Shah will be replaced by the 12th elected Secretary’s Committee member from St Peter’s Jack Solomon.

Naz Shah has been contacted for comment.

Rego’s Abortion Pastels: An artistic fight against stigma

Franklin Nelson
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Rego’s Abortion Pastels: An artistic fight against stigma

In Portugal in 1974, the fascist dictatorship the ‘Estado Novo’, with its emphasis on the importance of the role of motherhood for women, was overthrown in a military coup and a new, left-wing government was formed, with a motto of ‘Democratisation, Decolonisation, Development’. However, views on the right to an abortion, which were heavily influenced by Catholic doctrine, still stoked widespread controversy.

In response, in 1998, a referendum was organised to determine views on the decriminalization of the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, as long as it takes place in the first 10 weeks and is in an authorized healthcare institution. Yet despite the political changes, 50.91% of voters rejected the change, with a voter turnout of well under 50%. Naturally, the tight nature of this margin prvoked widespread discontent. In such a context, the Portuguese-born artist, Paula Rego decided to take action.

Much of Rego’s work has been marked by, and produced in response to, events in and from Portuguese history. For example, her tapestry depicting the Battle of Alcacer-Quibir, at which the King of Portugal, Dom Sebastiao, vanished and was presumed dead, and her 1960 painting, entitled ‘Salazar Vomiting the Homeland’. Her response to the No vote in the 1998 referendum is no exception to this trend. Between July 1998 and February 1999, Rego produced a series of ten pastels, which later became known as Untitled: Abortion Pastels. Unusually for the artist, the series is without a title, suggesting that she wants these highly graphic pieces to speak for themselves. In a subsequent interview, Rego stated that the series “was born from [her] indignation”, adding that she could “not abide the idea of blame in relation to this act. What each woman suffers in having to do it is enough.”

Each pastel depicts a woman – some are older, others younger – attempting to carry out an abortion by themselves. They are lying on beds, sat on chairs, squatting, in domestic settings – clearly not places where abortions are supposed to be carried out. But these women, who no doubt stand for Portuguese women in general, have no choice because of the country’s law. Either they choose to give birth, or they attempt to end their pregnancy prematurely and clandestinely. Some look away whilst others gaze out towards the viewer, making for an unavoidably disconcerting, voyeuristic encounter. Contributing to the voyeurism is the fact that some of the women are dressed as schoolgirls; Rego has spoken of this decision as being an attempt to reinforce the message of the works: it’s not pleasant, is it?

The women seem to be in pain. The vivid, bold colours of their clothing and their surroundings throw into relief the desperate nature of their situation. Indeed, the title of the works – Abortion Pastels – seems almost oxymoronic, in light of the conflicting connotations of the two words. While the former evokes physical and emotional pain, the latter makes the audience think of soft, delicate shades and scenes. It is as though the two should not belong together but, by bringing them into the same frame, Rego is surely not only trying to make the point that abortion can no longer be ignored, but also provocatively challenging the limits of what art can depict and how art should be viewed.

In 2007, there was a second referendum on whether abortion in the first ten weeks of pregnancy should be legalised. With 59.25% of voters casting their ballot in favour of the change, Portugal caught up with much of the rest of the world in relation to access to abortion.

A ground-breaking series, Rego’s Abortion Pastels challenge and condemn the cruelty and hypocrisy of Portuguese society and its policing and shaming of women’s bodies; a legacy of the fascist dictatorship that still casts a shadow over the country.

In keeping with her Iberian predecessor Picasso, who made the case that art should serve as “una herramienta de lucha” (“a tool of warfare”), Rego’s series underlines that the shame surrounding having an abortion does not rest with these women.

Instead, it lies squarely with the society they belong to, which forces them to seek alternative, often dangerous means of terminating their pregnancies, and indeed all societies that do not accord women the right to a safe and legal termination.

By subverting the Salazar regime’s patriarchal conception of womanhood, Rego is launching a feminist counter-narrative to that promote the state for many decades, inviting the viewer to reflect on the changes that have taken place over time with respect to the relationship between reproductive rights and religious belief.

Visually striking and innately political, this is art designed to shame the powers-that-be, and society in general, into action.

An Artist Censored and Shamed

Basil Bowdler
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An Artist Censored and Shamed

In April 1912, aged 21, Egon Schiele found himself imprisoned for 24 days, having been accused of seducing and abducting underage girls and exhibiting pornographic material to minors. Though undoubtedly a personal nadir, Schiele’s imprisonment fits into a wider period in the artist’s life. Sickened by the superficial sycophancy of Vienna, Schiele sought artistic rejuvenation in the countryside, only to find his cosmopolitan habits and eroticized artwork hounded by his conservative neighbours.

In the pantheon of tortured artists, Schiele is a paramount, but also a problematic figure. The debate as to whether his portraits represent a playful subversion of contemporary standards of sexual conduct and display, or whether they depict the pornographic exploitation of adolescent girls, will continue to be debated into perpetuity. Indeed, Schiele’s work asks us to question whether it is the prerogative, or even the duty, of an artist to override morality.

For all his protests about the artifice of Viennese life, Schiele was a quintessential product of the city he sought flight from. Already daring, his work reached new heights under the pupilage of Gustav Klimt, the patriarch of fin de siècle Viennese art, whose decorative eroticism Schiele began to incorporate. It was through Klimt that Schiele was not only introduced to potential patrons, but also to the expressionist works of Kokoschka, Munch, and van Gogh. Though Klimt was a vital spring of inspiration and support for Schiele, the younger artist soon broke out into his distinct oeuvre. Klimt’s angular poses and depictions of lustful escapism gave way to emaciated and contorted figures with a new level of sexual openness.

Whereas a sense of wide-eyed excitement at the world, albeit in very different forms, pervades the work of both Klimt and van Gogh, Schiele often turned his gaze inwards onto himself. Schiele’s conflicted, even paradoxical, self-portrayal reveals a man battling for a sense of self and place in the world: we see Schiele as saint and sinner, fashionable dandy and emaciated corpse, martyr and masturbator.

Such adolescent angst goes hand in hand with a zeal for sincerity and a rejection of the artificial. The dazzling decorative schemes of Klimt were no longer enough for Schiele, and he sought to hone his work in rural retreat.
The first of Schiele’s sojourns was to Krumau, Czechoslovakia. Travelling with fellow artists, the eccentric dress and pose of Schiele’s entourage isolated them from their new community. Indeed Schiele’s paintings of Krumau reflect this sense of unease. The tall imposing houses and brooding castle of the real-life town are exaggerated and tarred with carcinogenic
brown and black in Dead City III (1911). Yet most disturbingly for the townsfolk, Schiele’s party became a massive hit with some of the town’s youth. One school-boy, Willy Lidl, became utterly infatuated with Schiele. When the artist briefly returned to Vienna, Willy desperately wrote to
him: “I love you endlessly, I live only for you. If you stay near me
I will become strong, if you leave me I will die.” Amongst the party was also the 17-year old Wally Neuzil, a former model and lover of Klimt’s who Schiele now embarked on a relationship with.

Escaping from the claustrophobia and condemnation of the town, Schiele and Wally took up residence in the outskirts: in a house with an idyllic garden. With the support of Willy and Wally, Schiele settled into rural life with astonishing success, ecstatically writing to friends to come out to visit him. The impressionistic haze of Field of Flowers (1910) captured the mood of childlike paradise that now engulfed Schiele. Yet something more suspect and scandalous was also afoot. Schiele’s practice of having young models sit for him, obscured in the anonymity of Vienna, quickly became a cause of public scandal. Though it seems that all of Schiele’s young models were
volunteers, and though the borders of sexual maturity were more hazy in an age where the age of consent was fourteen, his failure to get the permission of their parents is inexcusable. It brought condemnation down upon him. Exasperated and outraged, the enraged townsmen eventually drove Schiele and Wally out.

Despite the circumstances of their abrupt departure from Krumau, Schiele and Wally were determined to get away to another rural retreat. This time it was the town of Neulenbach, half an hour outside of Vienna. They picked up their same lifestyle and gossip quickly spread. Yet when a young girl
running away from home sought refuge with Schiele, who was too embarrassed to return her to her parents, the artist found himself confronted with the police, who unearthed hundreds of erotic works.

Schiele spent 21 days in prison before appearing before a court. The judge denounced Schiele’s work, taking a candle to one of Schiele’s drawings. It was a powerful demonstration that, as much for the nature of his work as for his supposed seduction and abduction, Schiele was condemned. Indeed, the only charge that held up was the one of displaying pornographic images; the charges of abduction and seduction were dropped.

Yet with all art – especially that of Schiele, given its preoccupation with the individual self – it is difficult, if not nigh on impossible, to draw a neat distinction between the lifestyle that produces it and the art itself. Schiele was a product of a Viennese scene where moral concerns over sex and age were viewed more as irritating and obsolete obstructions than as rigid taboos.

In transmitting this artistic philosophy outside of the urban confines, he exposed himself to criticism to a far greater extent than he had previously. The outrage and despair Schiele felt is forcefully displayed in To Prevent an Artist from Working Is a Crime, It Is to Kill Life Which Is in Gestation (1912). Stretched out beneath a pile of coats and blankets, Schiele’s sunken eyes, cropped hair, and unkempt stubble have a skeletal horror. Turned on its side, his lying body appears to float and rise with a spectral quality. It is as if the very asceticism of his conditions was draining the life from him.

Schiele’s imprisonment met with protests from many of his supporters in Vienna and served primarily to bolster his presence. Though it does not do to romanticize the plight of the tortured artist in prison, nor can Schiele’s imprisonment be dismissed merely as a mytholigising episode. In many ways, it was Schiele’s artistic coming-of-age. The child-like naivety at the idea of the artist as a god, reshaping the world as he saw fit, which pervades his earlier work now gave way to a serious awareness of the darker side of this world. Previously Schiele had toyed with the concept of death as a mirror to life; now his work took on a grim morality.

Schiele’s censorship, though short-lived and more of a moral and aesthetic than a political dimension, was no less impactful for it. It both brought to an end a period in which he sought artistic regeneration outside of urban life and gave him a new awareness of his works potential to incite outrage. For Schiele, the paintbrush was a double-edged sword as capable today as it was a hundred years ago of provoking admiration as condemnation, at depicting life or death.

Counter-terrorism measures threaten democracy

Jan Eijking
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Counter-terrorism measures threaten democracy

We let things happen for as long as they don’t shock us, as long as they don’t look scandalous. And our threshold for something to shock us, or to look scandalous, may well have shifted dramatically in the age of terrorism, where “threat think” is the new normal.

Tellingly, Netflix’s most recent addition to its colourful men-with-guns portfolio is Bodyguard, an allegedly Islamophobic show about a heroic war veteran turned bodyguard and part-time terrorist-hunter. The show features Muslims only as victims or as perpetrators, or both. It has also received praise as the “best show of 2018”. If this is mainstream (and a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes certainly suggests that), it shouldn’t come as a surprise that mounting abuses of counter-terrorism regulation don’t raise red flags for most of us.

And they go beyond anti-Muslim prejudice: counter-terrorism, in the UK and elsewhere, is increasingly being used against left-wingers and artists.

Two recent cases lay bare the extent of this politicisation, suggesting that counter-terrorism has a serious problem: a democratic deficit at best; fundamentally anti-democratic leanings at worst. First came last year’s decision of the University of Reading to ask students to be “cautious” when reading a left-wing essay on their reading list, in the alleged interest of Prevent. Prevent is part of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy known as CONTEST, first released by the Home Office in 2006 with its latest revision last June.

It consists of “four P’s”: prevent, pursue, protect, prepare. Prevent is effectively a call for citizen paranoia — since 2015, all NHS staff have to pass “radicalisation awareness training”, and nation-wide schools are asked to safeguard against radicalisation.

The practice has crept into universities. In a 2017 article for the London Review of Books, Karma Nabulsi, Associate Professor for Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, gives a whole range of scary examples: a Sikh student praying in her room is overheard by cleaning staff, so her room is searched; a student’s request for permission of a film screening on Palestin- ian refugees is denied on the grounds of “extremism” legislation; a Muslim student explains she’d been suffering from depres- sion — in response she’s asked whether she was “being radicalised”. The list goes on.

The fact that an essay assigned for course reading is labelled a threat should raise more eyebrows than it did. Do we really believe that students reading “Our morals: The ethics of revolution” are in danger of radicalisation? Are we next going to purge Marx and Lenin from the classroom? If CONTEST is supposed to protect “British values,” is outright censorship one of them? How on earth did this become acceptable?

The UK is not the only example of this. As a German citizen, I’ve been following the news about an investigation against Berlin-based artist collective Centre for Political Beauty with disbelief. The group frequently makes the headlines with its combination of provocative satire and guerrilla art-activism: in 2015 they exhumed the bodies of refugees that had died at Europe’s external borders, flew them to Germany, and buried them on a Berlin graveyard to bring home the consequences of European refugee politics.

Sympathisers dug symbolic graves across Germany. Later that year the group launched a crowdfunding campaign for a bridge that would connect Europe and Africa; the money raised was then spent on a rescue platform in the Mediterranean Sea. In 2017, they invited high-school students to compose anti-Erdogan flyers which were then printed remotely in a hotel room in central Istanbul and sailed out of the room’s open window over Gezi Park.

And finally last year, when far-right politician Björn Höcke, Thuringia delegate for “Alternative für Deutschland” (AfD), publicly called the Berlin Holocaust Memorial a ‘memorial of shame’, the Centre crowdfunded a replica of the memorial which was then installed next to the politician’s private home. Thuringia had previously become infamous for the complicity of its branch of the German secret service in the activities of the “National Socialist Underground” (NSU) terrorist network. With that in mind, the artists called for a “civil secret service” to surveil Höcke’s home for as long as he wouldn’t kneel before the replica memorial.

The collective has received death threats in response. Höcke himself proclaimed that whoever “does this is, in my opinion, a terrorist.” Thuringia delegate Christian Carius (CDU) empathised, arguing the artists used “Stasi methods” which had “nothing to do with art”.

This month, a freedom of information request by a Thuringia delegate for Germany’s left-wing party (Die Linke) revealed that an undercover criminal investigation against the collective had been underway for the past 16 months — on the legal grounds of “suspicion of formation of a criminal group” under article 129 of Germany’s penal code (StGB). Prosecutor Martin Zschächner justified this by referring to the group’s declared intention to spy on Höcke, which he argues constitutes a criminal offence. Other groups investigated under 129 are right-wing extremist hooligans, Holocaust deniers, and suspected members of the Islamic State — natural company for an artist collective of course.

There is reason to doubt prosecutor Zschächner’s neutrality: he is known to be close to AfD, has donated money to that party, and initiated the prosecution a mere four days after Höcke had publicly called the artists “terrorists”. This doesn’t look like a pure coincidence. Just recently, less than a week after it became publicly known and numerous German artists and intellectuals expressed their fierce objection, the investigation was closed with immediate effect. Thuringia’s minister of culture has called the message this prosecution sends to Germany’s art scene “disastrous”.

But this is more than just a disastrous prosecution, more than just a scandalous denial of artistic freedom, and certainly more than just a bad apple: it is symptomatic of an unacceptable ambiguity at the heart of counter-terrorism regulation.

It shouldn’t be hard to decide where to stand on this. Of course, terrorist attacks must be taken seriously as a threat, that’s out of the question. But it is out of the question, too, that “terrorism” and “counter-terrorism” are wildly vague terms. Strategies and frameworks devised by governments can use that vagueness for political purposes. And that is exactly what has happened: counter-terrorism, as it stands now, is not just a strategy — it’s politics. It is not some objectively devised measure to combat suicide bombers, but a powerful instrument.

Policing efforts aside, what counter-terrorism has empowered in practice — be that through Prevent’s vigilante fantasies or by censoring art in the name of 129 — is right-wing paranoia. This becomes perhaps most obvious in the guise of anti-Muslim prejudice, but counter-terrorism’s red scare reveals an- other depth to its politicisation. And we’ve let that happen.

So yes, it is out of the question that terrorism is a threat. But it is out of the question, too, that we are entitled to our opinions. It is out of the question, too, that art must be free. And it is out of the question that a democracy must tolerate if not embrace dissent, contention, opposition, satire, humour. Without it, what’s left?

Love/Sick: An anthology of romantic adrenaline and hysteria

Mia Gainsford
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Love/Sick: An anthology of romantic adrenaline and hysteria

Love/Sick by John Cariani was first described to me as ‘an absurdly romantic anthology’. It is a selection of short plays operating within a wider theme, yet, this is not a piece looking to make an investment in the Russian-doll run bank of meta-dramatics for the sake of a huge pay out in cachet. Love/Sick uses the meta-drama for its diagnostic credentials. By this I mean, far less profoundly, its ability to allow one to make sense of a whole by observing the parts within. 

Consisting as it does of nine separate short plays, and so far having only seen three, The Singing Telegram, What?! and Uh-Oh, it is already apparent that the wider play, or rather the mother Russian doll to these nontuplets, is simply a performance of what it means to be love sick. In this play, love is a physical symptom. Love is adrenaline, hysteria and tied-tongues. 

Yet, that is certainly not to say that Love/Sick is a sickly, overwrought display of kisses, candle-lit dinners and other wild romanticisations – it is far from it. In Uh-Oh, one will see Sarah played by Olivia Marshall sparkle with psychopathy as she tries to ‘find the fun again’. Whilst in The Singing Telegram, Sabrina Brewer’s character, Louise Overbee is a cliché crumbling before the audience’s eyes as Noah Seltzer, the singing telegram himself subverts expectations and creates a humorous gaucheness beyond the inherent tackiness of his job title. The two together take the audience to a squeaky clean American suburb where anything can be bought in a Target store and all that is spontaneous is ‘retro’. 

Directors, Olivia Marshall and Luke Dunne have fully harnessed the natural dynamism and playful energy derived from a cast as concise as the plays, whilst the actors themselves navigate a plethora of roles with all the necessary agility. Eddie Chapman, plays the content, couch-potato of a husband, Bill in Uh-Oh and switches seamlessly to Andy, a lover tongue-tied by displays and expressions of sincere emotions in What?!, negotiating as he does, a change in relationship circumstances, age and sexuality.

Love/Sick is rather unique in the fact that all of the actors will perform both heterosexual and non-heterosexual roles. It is this impartiality from both the cast and directing team toward all gender combinations which reinstates Love/Sick’s broader concern with the importance of that which we feel when we are in love over whom we feel love towards. The actors are performing the state of being love sick, rather than making a performance out of sexuality or any other aspect of identity.

The form of the short play itself charges the narratives with an urgency, resonant of the heightened sense of reality, one feels in love. Yet, simultaneously the directing team have worked hard to capture the powerful and sometimes understated simplicity of being in love. It is this being (in love) which works so well in contrast to the brevity of the plays and reinstates love as a physiological sensation rather than a cultural cliché. 

What?! has all the charm of a romantic Auden poem, Uh-Oh all the twists of one of Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected and The Singing Telegram, an irresistible theatricality from the juxtaposition between singing and stiltedness. Matters of the heart are reconciled in doorways, characters are ‘dazzled’ and hands are held; showing at the BT theatre next week, one can expect to laugh, gasp and perhaps cry. The only cure to love sickness is falling more in love.

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