Wednesday 12th November 2025

Culture

Why we’re obsessed with Greek myth retellings

In every bookshop today, from Blackwell’s to Waterstones, an unmistakable pattern emerges: Greek myth is everywhere. Madeline Miller’s Circe and The Song of Achilles, Natalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships...

Down the rabbit hole: illustrating ‘Alice in Wonderland’

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has long proved an endless source of inspiration to illustrators....

The performance of watching: Cinema in the Letterboxd age

While watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025) a few weeks ago,...

Film festivals should be more pretentious, actually!

Film festivals often get a bad rep. We’ve all heard the stereotype before: they...

Captivating Calligraphy

Review of the Ashmolean’s exhibition of Qur’anic art

Oxford Oddities #4 – Hertford

Exploring the history of our colleges to discover eccentric artistic personalities.This week: Hertford’s Evelyn Waugh

Women Playwrights

Maria Fox addresses the dearth of women writing for the stage

The Bluffers’ Guide to: Women on Stage

Our weekly guide talks you through all the classic roles available to female actors

The Bard in Drag

Angus Hawkins muses on cross-casting in Shakespeare

Cannes you feel the love tonight?

Nick Hilton examines the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and whether it's just a Hollywood jamboree

Review: The Dictator

Georgina Pollard is pleasantly surprised by the latest film from the creator of Borat

TV Flop of the Week: Made in Chelsea

Carmella Crinnion is sick of everything about Made in Chelsea

Here’s to you, Ms Robinson

Christy Edwall listens to the Pulitzer-prize winning novelist and essayist speak

Review: Bug

Will Tummon is held emotionally captive by this raw, heartfelt and unmissable production

Review: Proof

Jonathan Chapman is not disappointed by this emotional play

Review: Dark Shadows

Georgina Pollard is left somewhat cold by Tim Burton's latest film

Review: Donkeys’ Years

In one of the last bastions of all-male academia, Jonathan Chapman takes in a delightful garden production

Suicide on the rail tracks

Thoughts from inside a train. When somebody took their own life under the wheels of an earlier train, things started to look a bit different.

Preview: The Deep Blue Sea

Timothy Bano previews what looks to be an excellent production of a play full of emotional understatement

Preview: Proof

Angus Hawkins recommends this stunningly good production

Angels and Consolations

Katy Wright provides a glimpse into what it is like to stage an opera

Storming the Bastille

Matthew Robinson and Olivia Arigho-Stiles consider the up-and-coming indie quartet

A Bluffer’s Guide to: Post-Dubstep

Matt Jones explores the latest scene to develop out of the UK Bass culture

A Bluffer’s Guide to: Terence Rattigan

Our weekly guide for the theatrically illiterate illuminates this establishment classic

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