Wednesday 12th November 2025

Culture

The performance of watching: Cinema in the Letterboxd age

While watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025) a few weeks ago, I found myself asking a rather disturbing question: “I wonder what people on Letterboxd are...

Film festivals should be more pretentious, actually!

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

On the edge of honesty: ‘The Man Who Turned into a Stick’

To rehearse and perform an entire student production before the second week of Michaelmas...

Erotic suspense and trickery: ‘Twelfth Night’ at St Hugh’s 

Lovers mismatched, siblings detached, and plans of trickery hatched: it is the time of...

Academia is hell, literally: R.F. Kuang’s ‘Katabasis’

R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis touches on a range of near-universal academic experiences: impostor syndrome; frantic, caffeine-fuelled study sessions; watching someone effortlessly ace every single test...

Oxford Commas at the Fringe – Interview

The Oxford Commas are a contemporary gender-inclusive a capella group who had their Fringe debut this year. They kindly agreed to talk to Cherwell...

‘Aca-demic Weapons’ at the Fringe: Oxford Commas Review

★★★★☆ A capella groups from Oxford have long been favourites at the Edinburgh Fringe, with Out of the Blue, Oxford Gargoyles and Oxford Belles often...

‘Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?’ at the Fringe

★★★⯪☆ Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep? is a one-man, one-puppet musical journey through the apocalypse. After a 'catastrophic' magnitude 1-ish earthquake, the dead are...

‘Timestamp’ at the Fringe: Existing in the ‘now’

★★★★☆ Timestamp is a part-theremin, part-dance exploration of womanhood, expectation, and time. Brought to the Edinburgh Fringe after a successful run in New York City...

Architectural and religious fusions in Andalusia and Oxford

Oxford is a city deeply entwined with religion. With the first of its colleges founded as Christian institutions, a college without a chapel is...

‘HOLE IN THE WALL L’HOPITAL’ at Fringe

★★★☆☆ Everything I write ends up being about grief – I suppose this review only proves that point. HOLE IN THE WALL L’HOPITAL, created by...

Beyond the binary: Leigh Bowery’s radical individuality

Tate Modern's "Leigh Bowery!" refuses easy categorisation—much like its subject A fashion student from Sunshine, Melbourne, rocks up to London in 1980, writes 'wear makeup...

St Anne’s goes All-Steinway: A purposeful and bold commitment to music

In a move that lives up to its motto of ‘Consulto et Audacter’ (purposefully and boldly), St Anne’s College has become the first in...

Just like the movies: An American’s notes on her Oxford year

Oxford occupies a mystical, almost fantastical place within the American psyche – so much so that when I told my peers I’d be studying...

Reading Oxford books in Oxford

For those who have not even set foot in Oxford, the city still lives in their imaginations alongside elite debates, candlelit balls and formals,...

Netflix’s city of dreaming Americans: My Oxford Year, reviewed

If not taken too seriously, Netflix’s new movie My Oxford Year is a surprisingly good time, despite its cliché storyline. The rom-com, starring Sofia...

Lacking Latin: Ceremonial mistakes in My Oxford Year

My Oxford Year, a new Netflix rom-com, has received considerable attention. Yet as a scholar of the University of Oxford, ​​I feel obliged to...

How radio changed the literary landscape: The Bodleian’s ‘Listen In’

“Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the Intercontinental Radio News. At 20 minutes...

Highway Elegies: Living Bruce Springsteen’s ballads

A tantalising balance of folk, country, soul, and rock ’n’ roll, Bruce Springsteen is a master storyteller. His songs are ballads in the strictest...

Jacob Collier is on scintillating form at Love Supreme

Despite being a seven-time Grammy Award winner, it was only at the 2025 Love Supreme Festival in Glynde that Jacob Collier had his first...

‘Pour summer in a glass’: retracing Dandelion Wine

“You did not hear them coming. You hardly heard them go. The grass bent down, sprang up again. They passed like cloud shadows downhill...

Reviving the symposium at the Ashmolean Krasis programme

Dara Mohd, herself a Krasis Scholar, converses with Dr Jim Harris about his object-centred symposium program, Krasis, at the Ashmolean Museum.

‘This Room Their Lives’ in Magdalen College’s Waynflete building

Every Magdalen member remembers their first encounter with the Waynflete Building. Sticking out a little obtrusively amidst the serenity of Addison’s Walk and the...

In More, Pulp aren’t just trading on nostalgia – they’re fresh

In a year where many are talking about one Britpop band in particular – cough, cough, Oasis – the often-forgotten band of the same...

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