Monday 13th October 2025
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Crave Review – ‘moments of tenderness crushed by memories of trauma’

Emily Lawford
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Crave Review – ‘moments of tenderness crushed by memories of trauma’

This review contains reference to suicide.

So happy / Happy and free.

The final lines of Sarah Kane’s ‘Crave’ couldn’t be further from how we feel as we walk out into the Edinburgh rain. The Woodplayers’ hour-long production definitely makes for difficult – and at times painful – viewing, but it’s worth it: through interwoven stories of love, despair, and survival, they have created a powerful piece that makes you feel a bit like you’ve been punched in the stomach.

Directors Alice Chamber and Helena Snider have given the play a sense of intimacy with a sparse, black set and minimal costume. The four actors have nothing but a foot or two to separate us from them. As they speak the fragmented lines to each other, we can just about make guesses about the connections that form and crumble between them. Owen Sparkes’ beautifully performed monologue about daily details of love (“And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal… ”) brings me to tears. But when he begins to speak again, a few minutes later, his are words full of menace – describing a relationship no longer loving but abusive and fearful. Love isn’t enough to save these four characters. Known only as A, B, C, and M, they have moments of warmth and tenderness with each other that are then crushed by memories of trauma: whispers of rape, incest, anorexia, paedophilia, suicide, and other agonies that seem to snuff out any light that emerges from the darkness of the text.

Kane – who died by suicide at 28 – became notorious for the shocking violence of her earlier plays, in which characters are mutilated and brutalised. There is no physical violence in ‘Crave’ – only anguish in the words spoken. Kane said of the play: ”Some people seem to find release at the end of it, but I think it’s only the release of death.”

This sense of mortality is there from the beginning: the opening line is “you’re dead to me”. While there are moments of love, and even laughter at points, it is feelings of loneliness and horror that you take away with you after the lights dim.

Machinal Review – ‘poignant but not perfect’

Beata Kuczynska
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Machinal Review – ‘poignant but not perfect’

The Almeida Theatre is well known for reviving forgotten 20th century plays, having run Tennessee Williams’ Summer and Smoke earlier this year, their most recent contribution is Sophie Treadwell’s 1928 one act play. A play about women, marriage and the monotony of life – it’s as relevant today as it was ninety years ago.

Treadwell’s play was loosely inspired by the 1927 real life case of convicted and executed killer Ruth Snyder, who brutally murdered her husband with the assistance of her lover Judd Gray, and was sentenced to the electric chair for her crime. The Young Woman in Machinal – the characters are unnamed in the credits – seems more sympathetic than this, and unlike Snyder we do not feel that she deserves her sorry end.

Emily Berrington takes on the demanding role of the Young Woman, named Helen during the play, and pulls off an impressive, although slightly misjudged, performance. She excels most when she speaks the least, and while the scenes with Helen and her husband are good, she has a tendency to rattle off perplexing monologues that seem to slip into an unconvincing hysteria, leaving her disengaged from the audience. This is not Berrington, for she is certainly a very able actress, but her portrayal may have been more effective had she chosen to inject more resilience into the Young Woman at certain moments.

As her blissfully ignorant and unsympathetic husband George H. Jones, Jonathan Livingstone impresses. He is strangely likeable in a character who we should loathe, and can be amusing at unexpected moments. It may be his charisma and charm that removes some of the audience’s sympathy for the woman at the centre of the tale, and it is almost – not quite, but almost – a shame when he meets his end. Similarly, Dwane Walcott as the sexy young man who brings her fleeting pleasure judges his role perfectly and is so masterfully smooth that you can understand why she becomes fixated.

Machinal is quite unique in that it is a one act play lasting only eighty minutes with an episodic structure. Each of the ten episodes possesses a vague title – ‘Domestic’, ‘Business, ‘Honeymoon’- and each is set in a different time period, although with the same characters. Not everybody likes plays with a single act, but this one ends at the right time, when you feel there should be a natural conclusion. However, a few scenes seem to drag on, particular the opening few and for me these were not as impressive as the rest. The first two scenes feel melodramatic and exaggerated and Berrington’s monologue is slightly forced, although many critics have praised elements of these scenes, particularly Denise Black’s performance as Mother. There is a definite improvement throughout the play, nonetheless, and the final scenes are excellently done.

My one main fault with this production is the choice to set each scene in a different time period. This is done through subtle changes – the typewriters and rotary diel telephones in episode one suggest we are in the 1920s/30s but the CNN reporters at the trial in episode nine reveal it to be the present day. The intention may be to allow all women throughout time to be able to relate to Helen’s predicament, but it does not totally work. For instance, her sense of obligation to marry makes sense in the early 20th century, but not in present day.

Perhaps the most impressive element of this production is Miriam Beuther’s stunning and original set design. At the end of each episode jaws of blinding white light close over the stage and open again for the next one. It certainly adds to the feeling of suffocation experienced by the Young Woman as the jaws literally swallow up her, cutting off her air. The staging is also amplified by a large sloping mirror at the back, which allows the audience to see the reflection of the characters in the mirror – especially powerful in the first scene at work as it emphasises the monotonous repetition of quotidian working life. It makes it look like a machine.

It is certainly a poignant play with meaning that has not faded over the years and the acting ranges from good to superb. The production itself may not be perfect, but it is clever and captivating. Emily Berrington may be one to watch.

Versailles End-of-Season Review: Intrigue, rebellion, and heartache

Molly Chell
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Versailles End-of-Season Review: Intrigue, rebellion, and heartache

Just like many a history student, it’s always difficult to watch an historical drama without pointing out the historical inaccuracies. Like in many of these TV shows, Versailles is also guilty of occasionally deviating from events as they happened. Characters who have gone down in history as loathing each other begin the season having formed a close friendship, and it is not always easy to follow such tales of events. However, Versailles does better than most: Louis’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes is emphasised, as is his struggles with the papacy. A combination of history and fiction means Versailles is satisfying for both history enthusiasts and drama lovers alike.

This is undoubtedly a lavish production. The photography of the series can only be described as stunning, as the sumptuous costumes set against beautiful scenery and architecture offer a feast for the eyes. Watching Versailles, it is understandable why the series was so expensive to make, but considering the end result, the expense was well worth it. The effort that the crew put into constructing sets that look authentic is evident in the difficulty the viewer has in trying to distinguish the set from the actual palace itself.

But it is the level of mystery that season three has introduced that makes up for past shortcomings. As well as handling history, the show does not shy away from the capacity of a core French history myth to create dramatic tension; namely the man in the Iron Mask. This is one of the most intriguing storylines of the season and one that Alexander Vlahos who plays Louis XIV’s brother, Philippe, Duke of Orleans handles with aplomb. His performance of the Prince’s growing obsession with uncovering the truth is carried in an emotive portrayal of the character. The scene where he finally breaks down from the toll that his quest has taken on him, including isolating himself from his loved ones, is very moving and whilst watching the series my enjoyment of it was never higher than when Vlahos was on the screen.

The final season also widens the scope of the show in an important way. Whilst seasons one and two were largely confined to the affairs of the Sun King, his family and the court, season three ventures into the suburbs of Paris where the inhabitants have grown tired of Louis’ absolutist ways. The escape from the world of the nobility that these scenes offer is a welcome one, as it offers a glimpse of early modern France beyond the dazzling façade of Versailles and makes the world of the Sun King larger and therefore, more realistic.

Not to forget the Sun King himself, it feels with the third and final season that George Blagden has really settled into playing the role of, arguably, France’s most famous king. He portrays Louis as someone far more human than the history books often present, as he struggles throughout this season with his identity and what it truly means to be king. There is also much to be said of the chemistry that he enjoys with Catherine Walker who plays his third mistress Madame de Maintenon, as their relationship is a central part of this season, and an important part of Louis’ struggle with his identity. But this does not mean that the show uses its female characters simply as ways to deepen the stories of its male ones. In particular, the down to earth personality of Princess Palatine (Jessica Clarke) injects some refreshing life into the Court.

The finale itself did justice to a season that has been very strong, as although the final episode left us with much of Louis’ reign untouched, it felt that we had been told a complete story.  Relationships that had been key aspects of the show from its first episode, particularly that between Phillippe and his lover the Chevalier de Lorraine were brought to a fulfilling ending. Causing a stir at times for its more raunchy scenes, the actors and crew involved have gone beyond what they set out to achieve.

The Squirrel Plays Review – ‘carried off with subtlety and aplomb’

Maya Little
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The Squirrel Plays Review – ‘carried off with subtlety and aplomb’

The Squirrel Plays could so easily have been a heavy-handed approach to abortion, made ridiculous by the unusual metaphor of squirrel infestations. Those looking for a preaching, angry play, however, will have to look elsewhere at the Fringe. The Squirrel Plays carries off its concept with subtlety and aplomb.

The set is used inventively without being obtrusive; small, brightly painted birdhouses represent well-kempt suburbia in miniature, haunting the fringes of the play with their respectability at all times. The direction exploits the opportunities for comedy; a blanket is unfurled to make a vertical bed, then effortlessly reused as the low-hanging roof of an attic; those sitting at a table hold up a board, and as some characters stand up to join a heated debate, the board lurches wildly while the remaining characters struggle frantically to hold it steady.

What is normally an unavoidably hard hitting, sober subject is elevated in The Squirrel Plays by a refusal to allow the theme to supress other shades of emotion – tenderness, humour, even boredom, all find their place in the play. The characters themselves are slight stereotypes; the soft mother, the local resident’s association tyrant. It’s a testament to the skill of the cast that they don’t allow themselves to be consumed by these types, but rather make space for their characters to experience inner conflict. The central couple, Tom and Sarah are particularly striking as they vacillate between the perfect image of young love, and the earnest fear and despair that lies beneath. The veneers of respectable normality that cover all the characters in this play are not so much shattered as stretched so thin that they become translucent, revealing an aching loneliness and unhappiness, particularly in Tom and Sarah, as they both try to process the infestation and destruction (of a squirrel, of a child), in their own deeply incompatible ways.

Similarly, the central metaphor of squirrels as children does not act to obscure the act of abortion (at least not to the audience) but instead to reveal and place pressure on the pro-choice and pro-life movements in more complex ways. Mentions of ‘unwanted squirrels’ being the result of ‘carelessness’ highlight the ludicrous nature of certain arguments against abortion, whilst the defamiliarization brought about by the metaphor allows the audience to think on the subject at one remove from their own, often very strongly held, opinions.

This is a striking, loveable production, skilfully directed. It jumps with ease the hurdle at which many Fringe productions fall: to handle a major contemporary issue with exploratory thoughtfulness.

Prime Minister’s former chief of staff becomes Wadham fellow

Cherwell News
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Prime Minister’s former chief of staff becomes Wadham fellow

Theresa May’s former chief of staff, Nick Timothy, has been appointed a visiting fellow of Wadham College.

Cherwell understands that some senior staff members resisted the appointment, since the College’s statutes recommend that visiting fellow positions should be given to academics.

The ex-aide was reportedly considered by a panel before being voted on by members of the College’s Governing Body, according the The Times.

One student told the paper: “Did he know our nickname was the People’s Republic of Wadham before he put in his application?”

The College is popularly treated as among the most left-wing across the University.

Nick Timothy resigned from his role as the Prime Minister’s chief political adviser after the 2017 General Election, in which the Conservatives lost their majority in the House of Commons.

This followed Tory MPs and members blaming Mr Timothy, and his fellow joint Chief of Staff Fiona Hill, for his role in the Conservatives’ loss of seats, despite a previous 20-point lead in election polls.

He has since been commissioned to write for The Sun and hired as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph.

Wadham College have been contacted for comment.

Is it time to think about those 0th week exams?

Simone Fraser
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Is it time to think about those 0th week exams?

It’s 0thweek, all your friends that you haven’t seen in weeks are doing something fantastic, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and you’re sat at your desk with approximately 50 hours of work and revision for 3 collections that you need to get done by 9am the next morning. We’ve all been there, and it’s not exactly fun.

However, there are some reasonably simple things you can do to avoid being in this situation. Obviously, the only real solution is to do the work beforehand. You can do this in a way that means your vac is not just a rerun of term-time, but with less pretty study sessions in the rad cam, and more of your parents deciding to hoover just at the moment you finally sit down to get going. There are certainly ways to cope!

Although the absolute last thing you want to do deep into the summer is plan ahead, this is definitely going to save you a lot of hassle further down the line. Give yourself a fighting chance! If you’re spending a month backpacking through Asia it’s unlikely you’re going to spend your evenings getting to grips with the complexities of thermodynamics, so pick out a handful of days where you can drag yourself to the nearest overpriced coffee shop, sit down, and try and plough through a bit of the work. Try to be reasonable; there are going to be days that you planned to work but things come up and I doubt you’ll be diligently telling your best friends that you would love to go for an afternoon in the September sunshine at the pub, but you simply must read the works of K. B. McFarlane. Make sure to be flexible.

The best thing you can do though is be kind to yourself. Ultimately, its time for a break. Vacs are supposed to be just that – vacations. Oxford terms are really intense, as I’m sure none of you need to be told, and for the good of your health and happiness, you probably need to switch off for a bit and spend a few days in bed, watching Brooklyn 99 on repeat and eating Doritos for all three meals. So, don’t be too hard on yourself, and remember that your wellbeing is more important than any essay. So keep enjoying the vac, but maybe start to think about making life that little bit easier for your future stressed-0thweek self too.

Eat Your Heart Out review – ‘A nuanced and authentic exploration of a stigmatised subject matter’

Cesca Echlin
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Eat Your Heart Out review – ‘A nuanced and authentic exploration of a stigmatised subject matter’

Eating disorders are a difficult subject to tackle on stage. Those affected by them experience them in vastly different ways, and such disparity in experience presents a challenge for one attempting to recreate these kinds of issues. In ‘Eat Your Heart Out,’ Tightrope Productions have succeeded in creating a piece of drama that approaches this conventionally stigmatised subject matter with sensitivity and nuance, whilst bringing to it moments of real light-heartedness.

The story follows 17-year-old Bel (Ella McCallum), introduced to the audience as the kind of down-to-earth teenage girl any of us could have known, or in fact been. As the play progresses, however, Bel develops anorexia, and we are confronted with the rippled effects this illness has – not only on the individual, but also on the people closest to them.

The work of the ensemble is compelling from the outset, and proves particularly effective when the actors embody the bustle of the world Bel inhabits. A stand out moment was the initial bus-to-school scene in which our central character is penned in by obnoxious, bragging schoolboys and Cardi B-rapping fellow travellers. This opening scene made visceral the mundane but anxiety-inducing realities of teenage life. Another effective ensemble scene was the visual representation of Bel and her friend, Nicole (Mia Georgis), as they lie in bed (see picture above), texting each other. It is in this crucial scene that Nicole introduces Bel to the world of fitness and health instagram accounts. That Bel’s interest is problematic is made clear from the beginning – yet at turning points like this, the audience are provided with comic relief as the ensemble mimic iMessage text alerts.

In this production, social media plays a pivotal part in the development of Bel’s anorexia – from the outset she and her friends are glued to their IPhones, strung into an all-consuming relationship with the Instagram world of hash-tags, ab workouts and clean eating. What Tightrope Productions have really put their finger on is the crucial role perception plays in the development of eating disorders. Bel defines herself from an image she pulls together out of various fragments, regardless of whether or not these are projections generated by the self.

In terms of individual performances, Ella McCallum made for a considered and likeable central character. I also thought Charlotte Dowding performed the role of Bel’s mum with grace, highlighting the potential for parental insecurity and anxiety as their child’s eating disorder takes hold.

The play’s writer, Alistair Curtis, and director, Philippa Lawford, must be particularly commended for this production. The piece was devised back in Oxford with around thirty people who have experience with eating disorders. Such a process has evidently given the end result it’s authenticity, and such authenticity should not be undervalued where this subject matter is concerned. I strongly urge others to see Eat Your Heart Out, and I for one am excited to see how it develops further.

Outgrowing the teen trope

Amna Mujahid
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Outgrowing the teen trope

“The brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, the criminal. You see us as you want to see us — in the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions.”

While hopefully none of us are like Mr Vernon from 1985 cult classic The Breakfast Club, it seems that almost every high school film we saw growing up forced us to see its characters through the eyes of its middle-aged, unfulfilled teacher – as a stereotyped set of teenagers, each falling neatly into pre-ascribed categories.

The Breakfast Club, with its host of seemingly one-dimensional characters, is anomalous in the genre of mindless and yet absurdly entertaining high school films (hint: Mean Girls).

It takes the limited cast, confined to one space for most of their screen time, to the 66th minute mark to finally open up to each other – to become multi-dimensional, in a sense.

These developments of character are only achieved after ‘blazing up’ in true 80s style with an obligatory dance break to Karla Devito’s ‘We Are Not Alone’. The lyrics foreshadow the characters’ realisations of how alike they really are when they break free from the pressures of their performative identities: “Cause when you cut down to the bone, we’re really not so different after all.”

The 80s and 90s witnessed the height of coming-of-age stories broadcast and embedded into the minds of whole generations. To name just a few: Pretty in Pink, Heathers, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, and American Pie.

Notable for its plethora of famous tropes ranging from the Saturday detentions to the highly predictable makeover (honourable mention to She’s All That), the genre is perhaps most known for its typical cast of shallow characters, like those in The Breakfast Club.

How are the characters of such films depicted these days? Are the Brian Johnsons and Andrew Clarks still occupying separate, dislocated parts of our screen? Or are the complexities of identity finally playing out from the start of films in a way as close to reality as possible?

It seems safe to say that there has been general progress in the representation of those oh-so chaotic (yet significant) teenage years. A few notable examples include: Me, Earl and The Dying Girl, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, and, most significant for me, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

In these more recent films, art mimicking reality is not the desired outcome. Instead, art is used as a catalyst for wider representation, to inspire us to reflect on ourselves, to live and be better.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, written in 1999 by Stephen Chbosky, was only made into a film in 2012, after much encouragement by leading actor Emma Watson.

She is quoted saying on Anderson Cooper’s Live Show that nobody would touch the script with a “ten-foot barrage pole”, pointing to the film industry’s reluctance to produce a film engaging with the real issues of growing up – without glossing over the realities of abuse, homophobia, drugs, and suicide.

While several topics only made it into the film’s deleted scenes – importantly a discourse surrounding abortion, which played a key role in Chbosky’s novel – the film was still able to capture the dynamic authenticity of his characters, which made the book so well-loved.

Chbosky’s teenagers simultaneously enjoy the freedom of high school and work through the different problems pervading their lives. Their individual experiences are neither perfect nor terrible, they are simply relatable.

As the film’s protagonist, Charlie, so fittingly contemplates: “This is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.”

The pertinence of The Perks of Being a Wallflower doesn’t just lie in whether you identify the issues explored. The story lingers in our minds because it so truthfully captures individuals on the cusp of adulthood – in the midst of their uncertain endeavour to become themselves.

The rise of narratives realistically depicting the struggles of young people represents the film industry finally coming to terms with the fact that difficulties can arise at any age. Life does not just suddenly come raining down on you on your 18th birthday, and people want to delve into that at times unattractive reality.

As someone who still loves The Breakfast Club and will re-watch it at least once a year, its value as a feel-good classic is undeniable. It seems the film was a stepping stone, leading us to some of the more ‘real’ depictions of growing up we see today.

And The Breakfast Club characters? Well, they will live on as a cultural memory and hopefully a marker of growth and transformation on-screen. As the individual characters of coming-of-age films grow and develop, so does the genre itself, expanding to more realistic horizons. And the crowds are loving it.

The Oxford Revue: ‘Wasted’, and ‘Group Work’ Reviews – “More time in the writing room necessary”

Emily Lawford
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The Oxford Revue: ‘Wasted’, and ‘Group Work’ Reviews – “More time in the writing room necessary”

Bad comedy can be fun to watch. That’s partly what makes the Edinburgh Fringe so good: we all love to laugh at a terrible pun or an awkward punchline. But far too often in the Oxford Revue’s two comedy shows, it felt like the joke was missing entirely.

While watching Wasted, the Revue’s sketch show, I kept wondering how much time the team had actually spent writing the script before they began rehearsals, as a lot of the gags felt like the kind of adolescent banter that’s only actually funny to the people involved. It’s not that the acting was bad: the four-person cast weren’t lacking in charisma or chemistry. Moments of really excellent comic timing from each of them managed to get chuckles from weak lines. It was just a pity that the lines were so very weak.

A sketch about a fifth member of a Swedish band called ABBCA being kicked out to make a neater-sounding name fell flat, as did an imagined meeting where M tells James Bond that if he keeps introducing himself as “Bond, James Bond” he will ruin his reputation as the “most secret spy”. Other jokes made me cringe – such as a sketch revolving around a captain wanting to hide a rude word in his ship’s name (Tit-anic), and a scene where a girl’s boyfriend is seduced by her father and runs off to “lick the back of his stamps”. Had I somehow missed the funny bit?

Entry was free for the stand-up show, Group Work, which gave it a relaxed atmosphere more suited to the group. The opening act, by Olley Matthews, consisted mainly of repartee with the audience that they were amused by (although I think more by their own answers than anything else). Laura Mckenzie’s set, that focused on her loneliness, had some laugh-out-loud moments, but lines such as “people think I’m chill because I dress casually, but actually if my personality were an outfit it would be a Ted Bundy-style skin suit of people that I’ve loved” provoked more grimaces than giggles.

I began to think maybe I was simply not the right audience for this kind of comedy. The (mostly middle-aged) crowd were definitely enjoying it more than I was. Maybe my headache and general Fringe fatigue was making me too miserly with my laughter. However, others I spoke to after shared my disappointment.

The shows were at their strongest when they touched on issues we’d consider particularly relevant today. Elaine Robertson’s set about being a northerner at Oxford was funny and energetic, as she joked about southerners thinking she was “feral”, and recounted how a woman recently congratulated her for leaving her home town of County Durham. And a sketch about toxic masculinity in Wasted got some rare belly laughs from the audience.

Perhaps that’s the direction the Revue should look towards in future productions. Or perhaps they just need to develop what they already have. Either way, a lot more time in the writing room is necessary: otherwise the group’s talent is wasted on telling jokes with no punchlines.

On Reading Lists

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On Reading Lists

Around the 4th of September last year, I received an email from my soon-to-be tutor. ‘Make sure you’ve read Villette, Middlemarch, Our Mutual Friend, and Bleak House before we start in October’ it said, and little else. All of those books range between 600-1,000 pages in the average paperback copy, and I had read none of them. We’d been told to try and read 30 books from a reading list over the summer, and I had got a good way through them, but apparently these were the all-important four, dropped on us at the last moment.

I never used any of these books in my essays. Other than now being able to pretend I know about about Chartists and pocket-boroughs from Middlemarch, and having the reading behind me to freely complain about Dickens’ structural and political flaws to other English students, my degree itself didn’t gain from me storming through those four bricks, each in only a couple of days.

Equally, the longer reading list instructed us to read ‘any three major modernist novels’, and after spending some time researching the options, I chose first to read D. H. Lawrence’s Women in Love. It came to be the novel that would shape my world-view and academic course more than any other. Having read all of Lawrence’s novels now, I know that if I’d been told ‘read Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, I probably wouldn’t have bothered with the rest.

What I think I’m trying to highlight here is the importance that choice plays in vacation reading. Applying to Brasenose, I knew that our tutors’ attitudes were going to be that of allowing us to have intellectual freedom to pursue what we wished, but I didn’t know how far that would extend until I arrived at Oxford. I have written essays on books that not only weren’t on the reading list, but were so obscure that they’d never had essays written on them before – by anyone!

The best hint you could get towards tackling summer reading is to find out what your tutors’ individual approaches to teaching are. Maybe they’ll teach on an author-by-author basis, in a chronological style, in a thematic style, or maybe they’ll let you have totally free choice on your topics. Sending them a quick email to ask how the overall teaching in the term will be structured in terms of content could save you pursuing topics that aren’t particularly personal to you, or won’t come up for certain. You’re more likely to engage with something that you’ve chosen, and the close attention that the tutorial system allows means that tutors are capable of letting you pursue your own interests, if you show enough drive and enthusiasm to pursue a particular avenue. Ask older students whether such ultimatums as ‘you must read X’ are to be taken with a pinch of salt or taken as law, and enthuse about what really matters to you to your tutors.

The reading lists we receive on a weekly basis are purposefully impossible to complete, and part of the skill of the degree is selectively finding what is both the most interesting and the most useful. You’ll be happier, grow more as a person, and be more attentive in your work if you are able to pursue what you care about, and very often in the humanities your tutors want to see these qualities in you, and will enjoy giving you recommendations that go beyond the more canonical choices.

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