Friday 1st May 2026

Culture

In sickness, health, and wrongdoing: ‘The Drama’ in review

CW: Gun violence. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” is the driving question of Kristoffer Borgli’s The Drama. The film centres around a couple whose otherwise perfect relationship is...

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s theatre: Defining the ill-defined

It has been 93 years since the first performance of Bertolt Brecht’s The Good...

Authenticity and the pop genre: Slayyyter’s ‘WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA’

Originality could be dead in pop music. The genre is so self-referential that it...

Why you should spring clean your bookshelf this Trinity

In the Northern Hemisphere, astronomers mark the beginning of spring on the date of...

The vintage sound of The Vaccines

As they prepare to drop their fourth album, indie-rock sensation The Vaccines tell Susannah Goldsbrough what it's like to be old fashioned rockers in a post-punk world.

Hedda review – ‘stubbornly disturbing and nuanced’

The most anticipated-show of Hilary term lands with both style and substance

Self-publishing can counter literary elitism

Self-publishing is not a new phenomenon in the literary world; authors ranging from Marcel Proust to Beatrix Potter self-published books that are now integral...

The C-Bomb review – ‘the perfect antidote for those mid-term blues’

Delphine Chalmers is charmed by this self-assured, intelligent, and funny piece of student writing

“There is always more that can be done”

Oxford is still some way from addressing its mental health problem, writes Abby Ridsdill-Smith

Iraq is not a twentieth century Crusade

Oxford historian Christopher Tyerman delivers a polemic speech against rhetorical comparisons between the war on terror and the crusades

The Shape of Water – an odd romance makes perfect sense

Jonnie Barrow finds many parallels to modern issues despite The Shape of Water's period setting

Withnail and I was a buddy comedy unlike any other

An old cult film showing in Cowley proves to be more sadly relevant to the student experience than expected

Hedda: “the story of a woman who demands a better life”

We chatted to the female-identifying members of the cast and crew of Hedda to find out what the play and its protagonist mean to them

Brakes review – ‘ticklingly funny and quietly frightening’

A refreshingly home-made and honest depiction of break-ups

Disposable Perspectives – Hope and despair in the margins of Paris

Amateur photography by refugees give a personal insight into the refugee experience

Victory review – ‘Julia Pilkington’s direction places us on a knife edge’

Victory is a reminder of student theatre's capacity to thrill and chill in equal measure

Girls and Boys review – ‘a drama that not only strikes, but leaves us sizzling’ 

Tony Wilkes is wowed by an unexpected trip to see the Royal Court's latest show starring Carey Mulligan

Black Panther celebrates black culture in all its glory

Examining the social power of Marvel's latest release

‘Artivism’ review – avoidance and awkward silence

The first half had the art but the second lacked the activism.

50 Shades Freed confines and confuses its viewers

The final chapter of the sex-fuelled saga encounters problems during its climax

Don’t give up on America

There’s much more to America than the current administration. John Mainland still has faith in the US

The changing face of the Virgin

Chris Ofili's new depiction of the Virgin Mary is shocking and enticing in equal measure

Two views on love compete for our heart

A medium must be found between unreal romanticism and cold rationalism

A woman who made a difference – for better or worse

Letters from Baghdad is a film about a colonialist woman who changed the history of the Middle East

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