Culture

Good grief! Why do we feel for the death of fictional people?

Whether it’s a mild sniffle or full-blown tears, I always end up feeling a bit ridiculous about the whole ordeal when it’s over. I mean, it’s not real, is it? Why do I waste my grief on things that haven’t happened, that will never happen?

The rise of the pop girlie: Marketing mediocrity or feminism in action?  

“GIRLS INVENTED PUNK ROCK, NOT ENGLAND”: so reads the iconic green T-shirt of Sonic Youth legend Kim Gordon. The slogan stands in defiance of an unfortunate truth in the music industry: femininity and credibility often exist in contention with one another.

World music after ‘world music’

On the face of it, the term ‘world music’ is perhaps one of the...

NAZA: The most important film of the year

The filmmakers of NAZA clearly know that beyond physical distance, emotional distance is what allows the violence in Gaza to continue, and shows us just how easy it is to ignore what is going on right under our noses.

Vessel: In conversation with Grace Olusola

TW: fatphobia, eating disorders, self-harm. Vessel, the new theatrical anthology from Dawn Productions, examines our relationship with the body and food through episodic fragments....

“Rage and heartbreak” – Review: Medea

"[Medea] is a truly frightening figure as she stalks the quad, coming right up to the audience and looking them in the eye as she delivers some of the most acerbic lines of the play."

Once Long Ago

In Once Long Ago, Jenny Robinson invites us to listen to the “dead tales of old gods long gone” struggling to find their place...

Work is hell: the brutal beauty of corporate aesthetics

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that hell is other people, but he was wrong: hell is an office job. The stereotypical image summoned by nine-to-five drudgery...

Love Without Words: The Quiet Storytelling of Heartstopper

Rare for the teen drama genre, the show, much like its sketched source material, is taciturn like an actual shy teenager.

‘Irishness existing in England’: the brilliance of Skinty Fia

I first came across Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. when my brother brought me their debut album on vinyl for Christmas, back in 2019....

Oxford’s rock and roll: a very short introduction

"Rock and roll and academia has never been the most compatible pairing."

Love Island goes sustainable?

"As a show, Love Island isn’t exactly known for setting a good example for just about anything, so the sudden decision to eschew fast fashion seems rather out of character."

Let’s get physical: Review – Holding

Neily Raymond reviews Holding, Kristy Miles' new play at the Burton Taylor Studio.

Wilde at heart: In Conversation with members of the Lincoln Drama Society

It’s practically a cliché to say that with such short and busy terms, there are more events happening in Oxford than any person could...

Lord Reginald Moreton of Oxfordshire

Poet's Note: "One of my favourite things to do whenever I visit new areas with my friends is to come up with ridiculous "histories"...

In conversation with the creatives behind Top Girls

"Every play Caryl Churchill writes has revolutionised theatre."

Performing the unperformable – Preview: Carrie

Founding Fellas Productions have made an interesting choice in staging Carrie: The Musical at the Oxford Playhouse, which I watched in a dress rehearsal earlier this week. With its catastrophic production history (a book of Broadway failures is named after it), the musical is famously one of the biggest flops in theatre history.

Netflix’s Newest Sweetheart

Originally posted as a webcomic series on Tumblr in 2019, Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper became an instant hit. It has been adored internationally for its...

Maxim Biller and Ukraine: The resignation of a German-Jewish author?

I am well aware that for the sake of switching off from university, or from the cruel news about Ukraine, it is better to...

Music for the end of the world: a Plastic Beach retrospective

"Plastic Beach serves as a poetic, wonderfully produced and musically brilliant reminder that the world is slowly ending, everything is artificial and no one seems to be doing very much about it at all."

Bad language: the value of non-standard English

In many classrooms, slang is something forbidden, a recent example being  a London secondary school’s decision to ban words such as ‘bare’, and fillers...

P.S. I still love writing letters

"In searching for an activity to keep away the boredom, it was during lockdown that my love for letter writing was reignited."

“Sorrow and birthday cake” – Review: Mojo

"Emotions collide and coalesce to heart-stopping effect, reflecting the disturbing inevitability of the chaos caused when drugs and fear mingle."

A green scream machine at Queen’s – Review: Little Shop of Horrors

Queen’s College needed a sassy, singing carnivorous plant. In drag.

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