Tuesday 28th April 2026
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Letter to: My Crush

Anonymous
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Letter to: My Crush

Dear Lecture Bae,

Picture this – it was October 2016, I was a bright eyed and hopeful English fresher heading to my first, and arguably worst lecture of the year. It was an idyllic time, we all thought Trump had no chance, and I had yet to miss a deadline. I sat down next to you – your slightly wavey garms were a breath of fresh air from the normie boys of my pre-Oxford days.

We exchanged an inane bit of fresher small talk, but alas, that was that. There have been others, I won’t lie. I was briefly infatuated by other lecture hall eye candy, from brooding literature boy who would probably read me Byron and talk to me about how second wave feminist criticism had done Rochester a disservice. But his sulky face and inattention during lectures put me off. Then there was the one with curtains, the weirdly old looking one…yet it all brought me back to you – you were always there to distract me when the lecturer had gone off on a tangent, me imagining whole conversations, our marriage, our children! Sometimes I’d even see you outside the hallowed halls of the St Cross building, in Cellar (of course), your awkwardly long limbs flailing in your own endearing approximation of dancing.

Then rolls along second year, I still see you, every week; keenly looking down at whoever is rambling on, me looking up imagining something more earthly than the religious ecstasy of middle English lyrics. Yet, I still haven’t made a move and, to be honest, I don’t really want to. At this point I’ve forgotten your name and imagining all the things you could be is much more fun than the reality – you could only really let me down at this point.

Now, as we enter into the vac, your face is fading from my mind’s eye, I probably won’t even think about you. But that doesn’t matter, you were never a viable option, I just like having you there as my trusty distraction during dull academic sermons. I might even meet someone who I’ll actually speak to, but even then I know I don’t have to worry because you’ll be waiting for me/our lecturer when I get back.

Lecture Creep xoxo

Masked with laughter

Anna Myrmus
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Masked with laughter

The power of comedy seems to stem from its capacity to tell the truth. Comedy at its best voices shared thoughts and expresses individuals’ often neglected feelings. Much like the sounding of a dog whistle, those who relate to a comedian’s anecdotes feel an implicit connection to him or her. Comedians’ ability to say what everyone is thinking makes them beacons of truth in an age of increasing dissimulation.

Why is it then that in an art form seemingly so dependent on truth we find so much deception? With each new ‘Me Too’ headline this trustworthy image of the comedian is being chipped away, revealing the man behind the curtain.

The accusations male comedians face – from sexual misconduct to rape – suggest that perhaps they are not the wizards of authenticity, but that their skill lies in their ability to dissemble.

The persona of the comedian is key to their audience’s perception of them. If laughter binds people together, the adulation that it elicits also constrains them to a singular viewpoint. The attitude and style of someone’s stand-up act becomes inseparable from their appearance in real life. The character they play becomes their public image. So much so that in seeing a comedian’s face an emotion or name becomes a reflex, so that Matt LeBlanc became Joey, and Bill Cosby became Mr Huxtable.

Bill Cosby’s role as the loveable Dr Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show made him America’s favourite bumbling father. The Cosby Show followed an upper middle-class black family that defied racial stereotypes and confirmed Cosby’s status as a cultural icon.

His ability to make young black people laugh misled them into thinking he was Mr Huxtable. His stand-up routine through the years also played on this image, and as he got older he hammed up his blundering ignorance, often seeming to wander off topic before falling into the punchline.

But there was nothing accidental about his joke-telling – everything was carefully calculated, just like his alleged sexual abuse. His frequent objections to the verbal profanity of new comics disguised the actual immorality of his own actions.

Cosby’s comedy created a powerful mask for his machinations, which not only caused women to trust that he wouldn’t drug and rape them (as he allegedly did to over 50 women) but also meant that a whole generation of people were resistant to accept the truth.

A comedian’s persona needn’t be entirely positive to conceal his misdeeds. Many male comedians have in fact used self-deprecation for years to cover up sexual misconduct. Louis CK’s stand-up is based on the premise that he isn’t a good guy, that he’s flawed just like you.

His comic admissions of his own defects do not make the audience sceptical of his real-life actions but instead throw them off the scent. His confessions of sexual perversion are so candid, so apparently self-aware, that his audience is tricked into believing him too honest to commit a real offense.

The irony of many male comedians’ self-deprecation is that it is so dishonest. By presenting superficial flaws as the worst parts of themselves, they keep the audience from thinking their shortcomings are anything serious.

Woody Allen bills himself as anxious, socially awkward, charming, not manipulative and malignant. Louis CK  professes on stage, ‘self-love is a good thing, but self-awareness is more important – you have to once in a while go ‘uh I’m kind of an asshole’’. What he leaves out is that ‘kind of’ is too kind.

Recently many male comedians have attempted to steer classic comedic gender tropes into more progressive territory.  Louis CK has repeatedly asked questions like ‘How do women still go out with guys, when… there is no greater threat to women than men?’. He feigns awareness of a broken sexual culture, and in chastising most men, manages to cast himself as the good guy – the comedic equivalent of ‘Not All Men’.

Of course, we now know that he is in fact the opposite. His insistence that female comics watch him masturbate demonstrates his inherent lack of respect for women; a belief that they only exist to satisfy his sexual needs.

Although new allegations against Aziz Ansari pale in comparison to those made against Louis CK, Ansari’s alleged blindness to the discomfort of his date makes a similarly stark contrast with his public persona of gender-‘wokeness’. His comedy presents him as the nice guy of all nice guys, not someone who would leave you crying on the taxi ride home.

The gap between stand-up act and real-life action leaves the audience to think that these men should have known better, and to wonder if they did. It is hard to feign ignorance when your comedy claims to be so enlightened. Yet laughter is disarming and its powers of deception ultimately shock us; we are seduced by the punchline, while its owner doesn’t give women the same choice.

Don protests his innocence in video as third woman accuses him of rape

Ryan Gould
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Don protests his innocence in video as third woman accuses him of rape

CW: This article contains accounts of sexual violence, assault, and rape.

A video of Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan protesting his innocence has emerged after a third woman came forward with an accusation of rape against him.

The video, which was published by French news outlet The Muslim Post, is thought to date back to November and shows Ramadan declaring himself “totally innocent of the crimes I am accused of.”

Ramadan adds: “With time, we will know who has said the truth, who has lied, and, ultimately, who is innocent”. He repeats his claim in the video that he is subject to a smear campaign by his enemies.

Ramadan, a professor of Contemporary Islamic Studies in the Middle East Centre, was indicted and remanded into custody on February 2 “as part of a preliminary inquiry in Paris into rape and assault allegations,” judicial sources told AFP.

The third woman, a French Muslim who wishes to remain anonymous and uses the pseudonym “Marie”, claims to have been raped multiple times in London, France, and Brussels between 2013 and 2014. She accuses Mr Ramadan of subjecting her to violent and sexually degrading acts during a dozen meetings.

She told Europe 1 radio in an interview that she “had to obey him, be available 24 hours a day, do whatever he told me, take pictures in submissive positions, on my knees to ask for forgiveness, call him ‘master’.”

“At first, there were feelings, otherwise I would not have agreed to see him,” she added. “I had difficulty saying the word: rape. Today I can say it.”

Henda Ayari, 41, accused Mr Ramadan of assaulting and raping her in a Paris hotel room after a conference in 2012. She described the alleged assault in 2016 book, I Chose to be Free, without naming Mr Ramadan as the attacker.

Ms Ayari said she decided to accuse Mr Ramadan publicly after being inspired by the “Me Too” campaign against sexual harassment and abuse.

A second woman, who remains unnamed, then reported Mr Ramadan to the police, alleging that he raped her in a Lyon hotel in 2009. She claims that he kicked away the crutches she had been using for her injured leg and violently assaulted her.

The woman alleges that she went straight to a doctor after claims to have medical evidence of the assault. She told Le Monde that Mr Ramadan sent her a text message afterwards in which he asked to see her again, “as if we had spent a wonderfully romantic and tender evening together.”

After she refused, the woman alleged that she was subjected to “months of harassment and threats from men who followed me in the street; one threatened to kill me.”

“Bringing forward a complaint can be a slow process. There will be others,” Eric Morain, who represents the second woman, said.

Last month, a court dismissed a bid by Mr Ramadan to be released on health grounds. His lawyers argued that his multiple sclerosis and nerve damage could not receive adequate treatment in prison.

Ramadan’s legal representatives were also unsuccessful in an attempt to secure his release by proposing the submission of his Swiss passport to authorities, posting a bail of €50,000 (£44,000), and daily check-ins at a police station.

Ramadan agreed to take a leave of absence from the University of Oxford in November after the allegations emerged.

“I have taken leave of absence upon mutual agreement with Oxford University, which will permit me to devote my energies to my defence while respecting students’ need for a calm academic environment,” he said at the time.

“An agreed leave of absence implies no presumption or acceptance of guilt,” the University said in a November statement.

Finalist degrees jeopardised by external examiner resignations

Greg Ritchie
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Finalist degrees jeopardised by external examiner resignations

External examiners are resigning in a further show of industrial action against proposed pension reforms, potentially threatening upcoming final exams.

The move, designed to cause maximum disruption, could lead to exams being postponed leaving students unable to complete their degrees and graduate on time.

It follows the release of a University and Colleges Union (UCU) statement calling for external examiners to resign from their positions at the 65 universities hit by strike action, including Oxford.

As is common practice, Oxford appoints examiners from other universities to their examination boards to standardise assessments across the country.

Through agreeing to set questions, moderating exam results, and ensuring that assessment procedures are rigorous, Oxford’s guidance documents explain that they ensure “the soundness of the procedures used to reach final agreed marks”.

UCU’s Secretary General, Sally Hunt, said that she hoped the call for resignations would motivate the “universities’ representatives to get back round the table with us as soon as possible to get this dispute resolved,” as “no student or university will want the quality of their degree called into question”.

The Director of the Institute of Classical Studies in London, Greg Woolf, was one of Oxford’s external examiners for upcoming finals, but has now resigned following UCU’s request.

He told Cherwell: “I am really sad to be stepping down as external for taught postgraduate programmes in Ancient History at Oxford, the university where I did my first degree and where I later taught for 8 years.

“I am doing so at the request of UCU as part of its campaign of industrial action to preserve the existing pension scheme that most UK academics, academic librarians, many administrators, archivists, technicians and other support staff are enrolled in.

“The really negative effects of the proposed change are twofold. First there will be a huge reduction of income in retirement for many staff, some of whom may lose half their income in retirement. Second while at the moment they/we have a reasonable idea of what we will retire on, the new scheme is much more risky.

“Worse still it hits younger academics harder than older, junior academics harder than senior and women (on average) harder than men. This is because so much depends on how many years each member contributes, and how big their salaries are.

“I am in my fifties and have a good salary and what I have paid in to date on the old scheme will still give me a good income. Someone who started later than me, or took a career break, or is still on a relatively low salary, will be much less lucky.”

Woolf also stressed that the pension dispute is just one of several grievances which are motivating the ongoing industrial action. “Casualization is a big issue, with a huge amount of teaching in older universities being done by graduates students and others on hourly rates. Many contracts are for 8 or 10 months, so some staff are laid off over the summer. Workloads are high, mental health problems are more and more common (as they are for students). All that has fed the anger many feel.

“All of us are keen to go back to our regular jobs. Not teaching, not participating in departmental life, and not examining is not an easy choice to make.”

“But the strike and other action has had some positive consequences too. Many people find a sense of community and mutual support on the picket lines that they don’t feel in their workplace. Best of all the support we have had from students is fantastic. The NUS has been great, but also we are constantly visited by individual students who take part in demonstrations, argue on our behalf with senior managers, and bring hot drinks when it is really freezing.

“All of us are keen to go back to our regular jobs. Not teaching, not participating in departmental life, and not examining is not an easy choice to make. But Universities UK (UUK) which represents the Vice Chancellors of British universities has given us no choice.”

President of Oxford’s UCU branch, Garrick Taylor, told Cherwell: “No staff member takes this kind of action other than as a last resort and we regret any distress that this causes students, but UUK are now acting contrary to the wishes of Oxford and many other universities and are unnecessarily prolonging the dispute by not finding a solution that recognises that universities are willing to take more risk than was factored into USS’s last valuation. Oxford needs to take a firmer hand with UUK to help bring this dispute to an end.

“The University will have contingency plans for when exams can’t go ahead and these will have to be enacted if the industrial action isn’t averted by UUK offering a solution that can be accepted by all parties.

“We hope for all involved that UUK start listening to staff members and management alike, so this damaging dispute can come to a swift end. We would also like to publicly thank Oxford’s students for the support they have given us, the fantastic solidarity, and warm drinks on the picket line. We’ve also already had students tell us that they will remain fully supportive if assessments are hit but we do hope that this will be over before that happens.”

The resignations come as Oxford staff prepare to return to work on Monday, after 14 days of escalating strike action since Thursday 22 February. Further strikes are also planned to hit the exam and assessment period, with exact dates expected to be announced in the next week.

A spokesperson for the Univerisity said: “On Friday we set up a page for students with FAQs about the strikes and where to go for further information.

“As you will see from the FAQs, we expect all exams to go ahead as scheduled and will put plans in place to ensure they go ahead if necessary.”

Let’s talk about loneliness over the vac

Sophie Kilminster
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Let’s talk about loneliness over the vac

I remember how smug I felt telling my friends from home ‘yeah? Well I’ve got a full SIX weeks off at Easter!’ Compared to my friends at Scottish unis, who have a measly two week break, it seemed fantastic. At last, no more having to keep my milk fresh by leaving it out on the windowsill! But now, less than a week into the vac, and with three weeks until my friends from home come back from their respective universities, the break is not quite what I anticipated.

The relief when term ends is great. Oxford is after all stressful and hectic whatever subject you study. This means at first it can be lovely to come home to a sense of familiarity and maybe, if you’re lucky enough, not to have to worry about feeding yourself for a bit. Within a few days however, spending your nights watching Coronation Street with your soap-obsessed parents, while tapping through Snapchat stories of your mates still living it up in Nottingham or Manchester, it can start to feel like a drag.

I can be sat there messaging my friends from Oxford, but it just isn’t the same. A group chat just doesn’t have the same dynamic as a cup of tea in someone’s room. I miss these intimate gatherings, especially when they always seemed to morph into a full scale rave, accompanied with strobe lights and noise complaints, as more and more friends pop in and out, each with a new anecdote or annoyance to share. I can’t help but wonder how much of their lives I’m missing.

I also miss the little things that had the potential to spark a brilliant conversation, or at least make for a great story over brunch the next morning. For instance, a few days ago, some vaguely dramatic screenshots came my way. If this had happened in college, friends would be congregating in my room and the kettle would be on. Within a few hours, we would be knee deep in Facebook mutual friends and reconstructing this person’s family tree via Instagram. But over messenger, a few ‘omgs!!!’ has nowhere near the same thrill.

Something else to remember is that university is also an escape for many of us. Sometimes we will find friends here that, for many reasons, we gel better with than anyone from home. After all, we are surrounded by such inspirational and incredible people at Oxford. For many of us, it may be the first time in our lives we’ve felt settled as individuals. To be away from those who understand you best for six weeks at a time can be understandably frustrating.

A lot of us may also not have a happy home to go back to also. The idea that the vac is a chance to return to the warm embrace of a loving family is simply not the case for many of us. It can be an especially miserable time if you are unable to express yourself, and be who you want to be, or if you are returning to an unhappy or abusive household. We can often forget how much of an open-minded, liberal haven Oxford can be.

I may be a fresher, but I feel I can offer some guidance:

If you have work to do, get as much done as possible before your friends come home. Don’t spend hours sitting at your desk, but do your best to be productive.

In my limited experience, an impassioned ‘omg we have to meet up this vac!’ shouted over your shoulder as you pack your last box into the car, isn’t a solid plan. Decide a date, a place, and a group, if you really want to make it happen! Even if it’s just a day, it’s a chance to see your uni friends in a different context outside of Oxford.

Eat healthily and exercise – think of all the Solomons it will allow you to have when you get back. Have a point in your day where you set aside time for self-improvement. You can even plug in your earphones and shamelessly listen to some 90s pop as you do so.

Whilst we’d probably all go mad if we had much longer in Oxford, sometimes the terms can seem unfairly short. It certainly didn’t occur to me how much I’d miss it all in the great expanses of vac. If you’re feeling like this, take some comfort in the fact you’re not alone.

Make the most of the vac, and don’t let it pass you by. Take the rest you deserve. Most importantly, remember that taking the effort to travel to Scotland, to see someone from Oxford, only shows how strong your friendship truly is.

Five weeks left – embrace the chance to rejuvenate, rest, eat well, be the person you want to be, have fun, and most importantly, don’t work too hard.

Finding the ‘Homeland’

Barney Pite
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Finding the ‘Homeland’

In the seventh series of Homeland, the FBI lay siege to a ranch occupied by survivalists protecting Brett O’ Keefe, an Alex Jones-come-Steve Bannon figure wanted by the Federal Government. It’s classic Homeland: a tense and dramatic showdown driven fundamentally not by action nor violence, but by the interpersonal relationships between the protagonists.

We are reminded, right from the beginning of the scene, that this ranch is someone’s home. The sequence in the ranch presents in microcosm one of the show’s central themes – the clash between loyalty to the homeland as home country and nation, and to the domestic homeland.  

In the first two series, Carrie Mathison, a CIA agent played by Claire Danes, investigates Nicholas Brody, a liberated prisoner of war. Mathison suspects, correctly, that Al Qaeda has turned Brody during his imprisonment, and the first series plays on the tension between Brody’s status as war hero and his hidden allegiance.

Images of Brody’s home-life in the United States are constantly juxtaposed with scenes of Brody’s service and imprisonment in the Middle East. We watch as the trauma Brody suffered in the service of one homeland tears apart another.

Carrie Mathison is also bipolar. Claire Danes’ portrayal of someone both deeply driven and deeply unstable is brilliant, and extremely convincing. One facet of her illness is a sudden, manic obsession with solving the problems she’s faced with.

Her obsession with preventing and hunting down terrorism is at the expense of everyone around her, including her family. This is particularly true of her sister, who takes it upon herself to keep Carrie on the straight and narrow. Later, in the fourth series, Carrie has a child who she leaves behind in America with her sister, while she’s posted in Islamabad for the CIA. Once again, Carrie’s home is split apart by her devotion to her larger homeland, America.

Homeland is often described as a ‘post 9/11 TV show’, as it concerns a range of issues which entered public parlance after the 9/11 attacks. Terrorism, intelligence, and espionage are all central to the show’s plot. In the first series, Carrie listens in on everything Brody says, and watches his every move, through hidden cameras in his house. Even the most recent episode opens with a supposedly secret conversation between two other characters, as Carrie watches on, a voyeur.

In real life, the United States government made this kind of observation legal in 2005, through title 2 of the PATRIOT Act. Similarly, in the UK, we’ve become used to the idea that GCHQ knows all about us, all the time. But Homeland shows us, in the wake of 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan, what this really means. The safety and integrity of our domestic homelands are constantly under threat, so that our larger homeland, our country, stays safe.

Homeland is a great TV show because it engages us with real questions about our modern world. Our homelands are threatened, both by terrorists and those who seek to prevent them. To what extent are we willing to compromise our privacy to ensure our safety? Homeland demonstrates that there are no easy answers.

Summer and Smoke Review – ‘re-staged inventively, but unpretentiously’

Bertie Harrison-Broninski
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Summer and Smoke Review – ‘re-staged inventively, but unpretentiously’

“Who was it that said that – oh, so beautiful thing! – ‘All are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars!’”

In Tennessee Williams’ much neglected 1948 play, Summer and Smoke, it is the character of Alma that says this to the other lead, John. The play, set exclusively in Glorious Hill, Mississippi, at “the turn of the century through 1916”, revolves around these two characters. They are in love from the start but can never get past their polarised differences. John is a medical doctor, whose secular worldview places people as “ugly machines” that should have no impediment to physical “satisfaction”, in his case through drink and women. Alma (“Spanish for soul”) is a preacher’s daughter who resists such cynicism, but suffers from “nervous attacks”.

This play is analytical and questioning. Alma is taken aback upon realising that the ‘stars’ quote belongs to Oscar Wilde, presumably viewing him as immoral.  Williams stated his work was “emotionally autobiographical”: to what extent does an author’s life change the message of their writing? And what exactly counts as “looking at the stars”? Does this metaphor really require looking outwards, or inwards? Alma has used a telescope but is unable to grasp the scale of what she sees (“Did you know that the Magellanic Clouds are a hundred thousand light years away?”, John asks her sarcastically). For John, it is through a microscope that one can really see a “universe”, which is “part anarchy – and part order”.

Director Rebecca Frecknall and her team have created a production that is likewise part anarchy, and part order. In Williams’ script he outlines quite specific descriptions of the set pieces, with particular emphasis on “the sky”, which “the entire action of the play takes place against”. He also states that there should be “no really interior scenes”. If this open view perhaps represents Alma’s reaching for the stars, then Frecknall and designer Tom Scutt have instead sided with John. Instead of sky we have the bare, rough walls of the Almeida. Orangey-yellow bulbs at the back of the stage are the only indication of a sky scene, dim stars against the stone. Instead of the three set pieces that Williams describes, we have an empty centre stage, with concentric semi-circle steps towards the rear suggesting the lenses of a microscope. In the opposite of Williams’ stage directions, Frecknall has taken the idea of “interior scenes” to its extreme – we are inside the body and mind.

The only physical set pieces on stage are nine pianos, forming the final giant concentric circle. They are stripped of their exteriors, so that we view their insides like a surgeon viewing a body. Concentric circles combined with the number nine recall Dante’s circles of Hell, but despite all of this the set is not intimidating or oppressive visually. The stage has a moody, piano-bar aesthetic, and the minimalism of the set design doesn’t feel bleak or empty. Composer Angus MacRae uses the pianos to great effect; his score is filled with inverted pedals and sus chords, reflecting Alma’s mental state, always at risk of an “attack”. When the suspense does reach climax, MacRae has the musicians playing in canon – but slightly out of time, creating a hellish series of looping melodies. When the pianos aren’t being used, the pendulums of the mechanical metronomes on their lids tick loudly – time is a key motif of the play.

There are more conventional songs too: Anjana Vasan sings a reworking of Portishead’s Glory Box at one point, and Forbes Masson sings an excellent number towards the end. Interestingly, Patsy Ferran never sings, despite Alma being a singing teacher. At the start, we first see her character in front of a mic stand, as if about to sing to the audience. Instead, she just breathes heavily, almost violently, into the mic. Is this indicative of pain? Sex? Suffocation? After, other characters compliment her singing; what we witnessed was her internal experience of performing.

Williams was a painter as well as a writer and his concept of ‘plastic theatre’ tried to combine these mediums to an extent. By replacing the ‘sky’ background and colourful costumes with simpler visuals, pianos and mic stands Frecknall is replacing visual art with music: reinventing ‘plastic theatre’. This allows her to explore the expressionist potential of a playwright long confined to “poetic realism”. Realism does not suit Alma and John; they are such extreme foils to one another that Williams works in jokes about Alma’s attacks being a result of her “irritated doppelganger”.

One way in which the lack of set or costume change does present a slight challenge is in the actors’ doubling of parts. Vasan, for instance, plays four roles, and it becomes difficult to always differentiate between them. I also have some reservations about ‘Papa Gonzales’; a drunk old Mexican whose only role in the play is to commit a murder. This character certainly needs to be more well-rounded or developed to stop it feeling out-dated and borderline-racist. Eric Maclennan’s Mexican accent wasn’t overly convincing either; this character’s brief role in the play presented some issues.

Ferran is the star here. A newly-rising talent of the theatrical world, she was excellent in Polly Findlay’s production of The Merchant of Venice, which was perhaps an influence, as another show with a minimalist set and ticking pendulum motif. Summer and Smoke gives Ferran a real chance to show off the full scope of her abilities. Funny, tragic, vulnerable and strong all at once, this production becomes all about Alma.

Alma is a difficult character to play, partly because Williams seems to have used her as a chance to explore Freudian ideas surrounding women – the woman driven to neurosis by sexual abstinence. The sexual appeal of motherhood: ‘Alma’ may be “Spanish for soul”, but it is also traditionally associated with ‘mothering’ female characters. “you don’t have a mother to take care of such things for you” she says to John in the first scene; “It was a pleasure for me to be able to”.

Ferran and Frecknall navigate this sensitively though, and to great effect. All in all this production is some of the best theatre I’ve seen in a long time, and certainly worth trying to get a ticket for (watch the ‘rush’ ticket releases on Tuesdays). Williams’ already little-known play is re-staged inventively, but unpretentiously, to create a performance that you’ll experience rather than just watch. Williams would likely not have minded Frecknall’s deviancy from his directions: he stated that “the imaginative designer…should not feel bound by any of my specific suggestions”. And this production is imaginative. It will sit you in the gutter, but it’s an “oh, so beautiful thing”!

Proposal to build cable car network in Oxford

Priya Vempali
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Proposal to build cable car network in Oxford

Environmental groups are calling on Oxford City Council to introduce a network of gondola lifts, with the potential to carry up to 4000 people an hour.

The proposal comes amid growing concerns over traffic levels in the centre of the city, with Oxford City Council today announcing a new campaign aiming to educate people about air pollution and promoting clean travel behaviours.

Last month, city council leaders refused to back a Green group proposal for £25,000 to be spent on research into the use of low emission aerial transport. It stated that gondola lifts, more commonly known as cable cars, should be considered as a viable alternative to road transport.

However, the proposal did receive the support of Oxfordshire County Council leader Ian Hudspeth, who told BBC Oxford: “We can’t build more roads in Oxford, we know we’re constrained by buildings. Now if this is an alternative by using the space above… I don’t see why we should not consider it.”

He stated that although the suggestion might seem “off the wall,” the council is willing to look into ideas that are “outside the box.”

The proposal also received the backing of environmental groups such as the Oxford Civic Society, who claim to be “dedicated to the continuous improvement of Oxford.”

Juliet Blackburn of the Oxford Civic Society Transport Group argued that the plans “have some huge advantages over road-building,” which would be “especially welcome [in Oxford] as existing roads will still be needed in the future for other modes of transport.”

She also highlighted their use of “clean electricity” as a possible means of getting people into the proposed Central Oxford Zero Emissions Zone. Blackburn also noted that the gondola lifts would be “ideal for tourists who [could] get a very good view of the city.”

Regarding the proposed gondola lifts, the Oxford Climate Society told Cherwell: “Oxford is suffering from dangerous air pollution and a congested city centre. To protect its citizens, innovative and bold measures capable of solving these problems are urgently required.

“If the proposed gondola lifts can improve commuters’ quality of life and take unnecessary cars off the street, they are worth investigating. However, it would be wrong to support measures that facilitate more individual car-traffic in the suburbs. Councillors thus need to ensure that any such measures are part of an intelligent package of public transportation capable of tackling this problem at the root.”

The Oxford Student Green Party told Cherwell: “If the Council is serious about introducing a ZEZ [Zero Emission Zone] then it needs to be looking at innovative new ideas. Rather than building more car parks, increasing city centre car parking spaces and cutting parking charges, as it is now, it needs to consider a wider array of alternative solutions.

“Greens are always looking for good value, energy- and space-efficient transit ideas. Gondola lifts have the potential to be all of these things, and alleviate traffic pressure on buses, cars, and cyclists. Our priority remains making cycling in Oxford safer and public transport more accessible, while reducing air pollution.”

The proposed lifts would be the seventh passenger cable car network to be built in the UK, and could connect straight onto the rooftop level of the Westgate Centre.

RSC Hamlet Review – ‘This is simultaneous creativity and destruction. To be or not to be.’

John Livesey
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RSC Hamlet Review – ‘This is simultaneous creativity and destruction. To be or not to be.’

A university graduation. Crash. A funeral procession. Crash. A marriage ceremony. Blackout. It is in this stylish sequence of tableaux that the RSC’s Hamlet bursts into vibrant, electric life. On tour for over two years since its original run, this production is permeated by the same swagger throughout. Loud, epic and bright, there is never a moment when the drama sells itself short.

Hamlet is a play that we might often associate with a dark palette of greys, browns and blacks, but it is clear from the offset that Simon Godwin intends to flip the tables on such a sombre and, indeed, clichéd theatrical language. The yellow set is bathed in a warm red light and a long Kente-cloth hangs at the centre. This is an African Hamlet and, in its vision, the production defies all expectations its audience might have about the best way to stage the most difficult play in the English language.

Paapa Essiedu as the tormented prince matches the décor in his vitality and energy. An affable, witty and boyish Hamlet, he often finds himself replacing ‘poor Yorick’ as the designated fool. He mocks the court-figures who surround him, impersonating them, playing tricks on them and guffawing at their interjections. Though we may forget it due to how rarely such humour is drawn upon, this tragedy does, undeniably, have its own share of jokes. With this production, we have the rare occurrence of an auditorium echoing with laughter until the last few scenes.

Draped in a paint-stained suit, Godwin’s Hamlet becomes a colorful trickster figure. It is only at the end of the first half that his patterned garments seem to acquire a new meaning. As canvasses inspired by Basquiat descend from the flies, we suddenly realize that all this bravado, violent theatricality and colour are simply another part of his confusion and torment: a creative urge unsure of how to express itself, soon to transform into destructive capability. Indeed, in one particularly disturbing moment in Hamlet’s bedroom, Essiedu cruelly rubs paint onto Ophelia; he is holding her prostrate on the floor. Language and meaning are at odds. This is simultaneous creativity and destruction. To be or not to be.

The clever Basquiat comparisons struck me as particularly perceptive. Like that artist, currently undergoing an overdue cultural resurgence thanks to the recent Barbican retrospective, Hamlet is a figure who expresses an inner life through ‘suggestive dichotomies’. He is a character torn between humour and sobriety, light and dark, sane and insane. These contradictions are what make him such a difficult personage to realise on stage. Even Essiedu occasionally seems swamped by what this production demands of the role, despite the highly commendable energy he brings. He maintains a spark until the very end of the play, but perhaps this sustained joviality is, in fact, part of the problem in his conveyance of the tragic hero.

The Basquiat influence also helps us to make sense of Hamlet’s position within the complex cultural backdrop of this production. The programme draws parallels between Hamlet and Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, who, in 1949, returned to Africa after conducting his studies in England and found himself mired in existential crisis. In this version, Hamlet returns from an American university: Wittenburg, Ohio. Caught between two continents, both Essiedu’s Hamlet and Nkrumah cannot help but feel a crushing sense of personal disorientation amidst external instability. These are the ‘mimic men’ that Homi Bhabha speaks of, trapped in a liminal space between cultures. Basquiat clarifies this link. Sitting comfortably beside Hamlet and Nkrumah, his art constantly searches for union between African and American ideas, symbols and stories. These allusions provide a productive and original take on the psychological impetus for Hamlet’s behaviour.

Whilst African aesthetics are employed in this production, however, they come refreshingly free from the baggage of colonial history. The fact that the names are not changed and the onstage kingdom is still called Denmark even creates the impression that we are observing a world in which imperial roles have been exchanged. Fortinbras is seeking ‘Lands/ So by his father lost’. But are these the colonies lost in the struggle for independence? Or inversely, are they European nation states invaded by the West-African conqueror, King Hamlet? If the latter is the case, the show might almost be considered afro-futurist in its interpretation and design.

Buffeted by strong performances elsewhere, notably Lorna Brown as Gertrude and a doddering Polonius played with great wit by Joseph Mydell, this production whizzes along. Whilst the morose mood of the piece in the second half negates much of the lightness of the first, and in the process lowers the energy, the show never enters the realm of boredom. This is no doubt helped by the African drumming that periodically features. In the fencing scene, this percussion reaches a crescendo, reverberating through the audience: every hair stands on end. It is truly magical.

This, like many moments, is a reminder of how important it is to bring different influences to bear on our classic texts. In an interview with black creative Euton Daley conducted by Cherwell last term, we discussed the idea that diverse casting does not necessarily equate to representation or a meaningful attempt to engage with different cultural experiences. This production however is not just, as Daley put it, ‘black people doing Shakespeare’. It takes seriously the world it represents and brings a whole new reading to the text. For these reasons, although it may not be perfect, this Hamlet is both innovative and important.

RSC’s ‘Hamlet’ is onstage at London’s Hackney Empire, between 6 and 31 March 2018.

Homeless emergency protocol activated

Oscar Baker
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Homeless emergency protocol activated

Oxford City Council will activate its Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) this weekend, taking the total number of nights SWEP has operated this winter to 31.

The protocol, activated on Friday night to last until Monday morning, means the City Council and local charities will provide extra shelter for rough sleepers around the city. It is activated when the Met Office forecasts sub-zero overnight temperatures for three or more consecutive nights.

SWEP is operated with the Council’s local partners Homeless Oxfordshire and St. Mungo’s, which runs the Oxford Street Population Outreach Team (Oxford SPOT). Other partners include Simon House, The Porch, and a number of Oxford churches.

On the nights that SWEP has been activated so far this winter, 703 bed spaces have been occupied.

We have activated our Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP), which means that emergency beds will be available for…

Posted by Oxford City Council on Thursday, March 15, 2018

Oxford City Council Board Member for Housing, Cllr Mark Rowley, said: “The unusually harsh conditions in the last month mean that by Monday morning SWEP beds will have been available for 31 nights this winter.

“Activating SWEP means that staff and volunteers in Oxford’s homelessness services step up from their regular duties to deal with emergency conditions, and it is a tribute to their experience and professionalism that SWEP has risen to the extraordinary challenges it has faced this winter.

“If you are concerned about a rough sleeper, you can contact Oxford SPOT on 01865 304611 to make a referral, or report them on the national StreetLink website or app. The Oxford SPOT line is not an emergency line for reporting rough sleepers at night, as the Oxford SPOT team will be helping to run SWEP and not taking phone calls.

“If you think there is immediate danger to the health of a rough sleeper, please call 999 instead.”

Rough sleepers can access beds at O’Hanlon House between 9pm and 9.30pm every night that SWEP is activated. Members of the Oxford SPOT team will be out on the streets to inform homeless people that the protocol is in operation this weekend.

O’Hanlon House provides a “secure environment” for “known rough sleepers with chaotic behaviours and those presenting for the first time whose needs are unknown.”

Known rough sleepers who present a lower risk to themselves or other are often allocated shelter in the churches’ Oxford Winter Night Shelter (OWNS).

Specialist SWEP provision is also available for single homeless women.

Last term, Oxford SU’s homeless campaign ‘On Your Doorstep’ petitioned the City Council to operate SWEP on every night of sub-zero temperatures, rather than when three consecutive nights of freezing weather are forecast. This would be in line with homeless policy in London.

Chair of ‘On Your Doorstep’, Alex Kumar, told Cherwell: “It is brilliant to see eligibility rules suspended and emergency shelter opened to rough sleepers. Shelter on freezing nights is a basic human need.

“One local authority on its own cannot solve the national homelessness crisis, but it can do a lot to to ease human suffering, and I encourage Oxford to be bold, like London, like Liverpool.

“I hope the City Council continues to go forward from here towards activating SWEP and opening the shelters to all rough sleepers on every freezing night, knowing that they have support from their own local party in doing so.”

https://www.facebook.com/OnYourDoorstepCampaign/posts/1996361463960788

Rough sleepers have reportedly been reluctant on occasion to access the shelters, citing concerns about drug use and the lack of provision for dogs.

Spaces for up to four dogs are available in Homeless Oxfordshire’s O’Hanlon House, though these are all currently taken. Oxford SPOT offers free kennel spaces to all rough sleepers with dogs during SWEP periods.

A further decision about whether to continue operating SWEP will be made on Monday.

On the nights that SWEP has been activated so far this winter, 121 individuals have accessed emergency beds, with an average of 24 rough sleepers each night during SWEP periods. The highest number in SWEP beds on any one night was 38 people.

A November 2017 count of the homeless population in Oxford put the total number of rough sleepers at 61, the highest recorded figure in the city’s history.

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