Friday 8th May 2026
Blog Page 834

13 Review – ‘effectively and enjoyably portrays Bartlett’s broken Britain’

Bertie Harrison-Broninski
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13 Review – ‘effectively and enjoyably portrays Bartlett’s broken Britain’

What would a 21st century Christ be like? What would society’s need for this figure be, and how would it react to him?

Mike Bartlett’s 2011 play ‘13’ takes elements of the biblical story and throws them into a dense, modern, socio-political narrative. Twelve people across London are having the same nightmare, involving “monsters” and an “explosion”. Meanwhile the young John (Lee Simmonds) has returned mysteriously from being presumed dead. He preaches a message of hope, and then leads a social uprising against capitalism and interventionist war. However, is this really why he wants the Prime Minister’s attention, and what was his history before he disappeared?

It’s an ambitious play, both for the writer and production team: not least because of the large cast and ‘collage’ style of short, interspersed scenes. With this in mind, director Alex Blanc and everyone at the Keble O’Reilly did an admirable job; the performance progressed cohesively, and the audience seemed engaged with the multiple subplots, even if certain characters ended up getting drowned out in the mix.

A silver background with rectangular sections of empty space nods to Tom Scutt’s set design for the original production at the Olivier Theatre, which featured a giant, rotating cube. ‘Boxes’ become an important motif of the play, and Greta Sharp’s design here doubles as a sea of screens. This becomes literal as projections of video footage allow John to preach to the audience via social media. While we watch John on these giant screens, their constant presence in the background gives a sense of them watching over us instead.

This idea extends to the rest of the set, which consists only of two tables and chairs, one of which is small, with a plastic tablecloth, the other larger, wooden, and significantly raised on a high platform. This becomes the Prime Minister’s office, with the more old-fashioned furniture suggesting her conservative politics. While characters follow the news on their screens from below, the Prime Minister (Maddie Page) looks down upon them from her higher position. Especially in a moderately small auditorium, this raised platform lessens the sense of looking down at the stage that an audience might normally have. Are we watching or being watched?

The Prime Minister (Ruth) is a determined neoliberal in the middle of two radicals. One of these is John, and the other Stephen Crossley (Adam Diaper), an atheist academic suggesting a parody of Hitchens, but with more right-wing views. Ruth’s character feels the most well-rounded, and Maddy Page handles the subtleties of the role impressively. While dealing with the responsibility of her job, she is trying to suppress her own personal struggles, partly due to the sexism that she faces in her professional and private life. Several men patronisingly make links between, as she says, “my emotional state and the fact that I’m a woman”. In many ways, she offers a positive portrayal of a “modernised” conservative party, unusual in the arts, although much focus is put on her commitment to start a war with Iran. Other indicators of a crueller nature do emerge, such as implying that her cleaner should be fired as she didn’t vote Tory.

As the plot descends into a debate over the nature of belief, the play increasingly feels like a war between Stephen and John, with Ruth having the deciding vote. Stephen represents pragmatism, and rational thought, but also authoritarianism, racism, and interventionism. John represents hope, optimism, socialism, peace and the power of faith. If this description paints John in a favourable light, the sides are in fact very ambiguous, and by the end we’re lead to feel that both characters have blood on their hands.

While Bartlett is clearly trying not to take a side, there are aspects of the script that I took issue with. He seems to promote the alleged link between conservatism and pragmatism that Cameron’s government endlessly promulgated after the 2008 financial crisis. The implication that right-wing politicians can’t be ideological, or that the left can’t be pragmatic, seems ill-considered. Equally, while Bartlett is right to criticise certain New Atheist dialogue that has come uncomfortably close to Islamophobia, linking racism and warmongering to a broader debate about belief falls flat. War and racism has been (and still is) promoted in secular and religious contexts: linking these issues to atheism is ill-considered.

This may just be a result of so many topics being conflated into the limited scope of the play, and that is Bartlett’s main flaw in ‘13’. Even the significance of the number ‘13’ is lost by the addition of other characters – why not just stick to thirteen?

When Ruth sarcastically says “Ah you’re joking…Ha ha.” I wonder if an actual joke might not go amiss to occasionally break the atmosphere. The points at which Blanc has the actors lie asleep on the stage only to simultaneously wake up in fright provide welcome pauses for reflection from the dialogue: a bit more physicality like this might be good.

Nonetheless Mercury Theatre effectively and enjoyably portrays Bartlett’s broken Britain; a world where politics is inaccessible and out of touch with the public, and the shopping trolley has become the symbol of aggression, a time in which we have online character-assassination in place of crucifixion. I’m left wondering whether the eleven-year-old Ruby is right in claiming that “Britain’s ugly”, or if it’s “just a bad dream”.

Daemon Voices Lecture Review – Two generations share the same world view

Lizzy Matthams
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Daemon Voices Lecture Review – Two generations share the same world view

Writers have a responsibility, first and foremost, to their stories. From the very beginning of the discussion between Philip Pullman and Katherine Rundell on Thursday of 6th Week, the philosophies of the two authors were made abundantly clear.
Any decent author has a responsibility to let their story do what it wants, rather than tyrannically imposing their will upon the tale. The concurrence of the two authors on this issue set the tone for the evening, and the over-arching similarities between the two became increasingly apparent as the talk went on.
The two authors appeared to be quite different personalities. Pullman was staunch and unapologetic, Rundell self-deprecating but brilliant. Yet both authors agreed that stories can want, think, and generally act independently of their authors.
Throughout the evening, the famously atheistic Pullman grappled with the dilemma that his characters seemed to originate ‘Somewhere Else’, and his conflicting certainty that that ‘Somewhere Else’ does not exist.
Rundell joked that she knows she is not completely in control as a writer, because her characters often say things far too clever for her to have thought up on her own.
Although vastly differing in experience, both authors presented themselves as conduits and recipients of ideas, rather than as the fount of these ideas themselves.
The pair also stressed how this role as a guardian of the story should come before any responsibility felt towards readers. Pullman condemned the idea of writing for the sake of one’s readers, and spoke at some length on his work with the Society of Authors, the UK’s most well-known trade union for writers, illustrators and literary translators.
He is clearly passionate to ensure that writing remains a viable profession, in an age of online bookselling and declining independent bookshop sales.
Indeed, the liberty to let the book do what ‘it’ wants is the very liberty Pullman is fighting for here. He wants authors to continue to write engaging and interesting material, without compromising their artistic agency for sales.
Just as they were incensed by such constraints on writers, both authors also expressed their sadness over attempts to categorise books into age ranges in their genre, and so constrain child readers.
Rundell made the eloquent point that a continual, upward trajectory of difficulty in reading material, if carried on into our adult lives, would make for a dull time when we reach our eighties.
Meanwhile, Pullman more viscerally expressed his disgust and exasperation that we would attempt to tell children when they should be reading each type of book.
Thus, these two seemingly very different people, one utterly comfortable, relaxed and more settled in his trade, the other fiercely intelligent, adventurous, and still in the early stages of her career, were in many ways kindred spirits.
Their self-professed roles as the guardians of their stories clearly united them. The interaction of the two revealed as much about their individual characters as it did about the character of all writers and together, they were able to establish not only what writers should do, but also why they should do it, and how their ability to do so ought to be protected at all costs.

The Blinders Review – The perfect band to play at Cellar

Arthur Charlesworth
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The Blinders Review – The perfect band to play at Cellar

For the past few years the dons of Doncaster, The Blinders, have been lurking under the seedy underbelly of post-Brexit Britain.
After supporting Cabbage last autumn, the thrashing three-piece wanted a piece of the action themselves.
Nearing the end of their debut nationwide tour, I caught them playing to a sweaty Cellar on Saturday where they turned town and gown, upside down.
First up beforehand were WATERFOOLS – a duo whose talent was apparent from the sternum shattering drums and gut-punching guitars in the very first song. ‘Breathe’ sounded like Royal Blood at their most royally bloody, while ‘Talk Like Animals’ equalled four chord perfection.
Barring brief pauses to retune, they rattled through a setlist which treated the audience to death-by-decibels. Despite all the noise, vocals and drums could be clearly heard and appreciated in the mix.
Moreover, the guitar never once struggled and provided surprising variety. At times sounding richer than St John’s on slower numbers, and muddier than Port Meadow on the Nirvana tinged closer ‘Nothing to Say’. The lyrics could be a little more refined, but that’s just the fussiness of an English student. WATERFOOLS have got something.
Next were Brixtons; a group of fluorescent adolescents, who had clearly picked up ‘Teddy Picker’ as soon as they had put down teddy bears. Combining the Arctic Monkeys’ early sound with their later swagger, the fourpiece careered into a setlist of carefully controlled chaos.
Rhythm, lead and vocals played off one another with the shoddy intricacies of The Libertines on tracks like ‘Ten Minute Chase’. But they didn’t just sound like Purple Turtle on a Wednesday; their best track was more Nuggets than noughties, and a slow song sung by the rhythm guitarist closed their set.
Brixtons are talented and although their ‘Still Take You Home’ cover showed their influences a little too much, the suggestion of other styles makes me hopeful for their future.
The Blinders took to the stage as champions with vocalist Thomas Haywood eyes ‘bleeding’ their trademark mascara. The pounding punk of ‘Gotta Get Through’ provided the perfect opener, reminiscent of the Hives’ ‘Come On’, and led into ‘Swine’.
‘I Can’t Breathe Blues’ is their best, responding to the death of Eric Garner, with a riff and lyrics that echo in your ears long after the band has stopped playing.
By now they were in full swing – a terrifying triumvirate of narcotic noise. Plus, in the intimacy of Cellar, with no bouncers or railings, it felt addictive and dangerous.
Tension builds in the lumbering bass of ‘Where no man comes’ and is released in the car-crash cacophony of ‘Brave New World’.
But it isn’t just bleeding ears – Critics describe The Blinders as ‘punkadelic’ and in tracks such as the off-kilter tango ‘Murder at the Ballet’ you can see why.
‘Ramona Flowers’ oozes sex and screeching solos in equal measure, while ‘Et tu Brutus/Berlin Wall’ closes the set, with Thomas bringing himself and microphone into the marauding mosh pit.
Cellar was saved for nights like this; murderous music, an anchovy packed audience, and more broken glass than your average Jewish wedding. Moreover, as the feedback faded away, we realised one thing; the venue was now in the hands of the ever peaking, fucking, Blinders!

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”!

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