Saturday, May 24, 2025

Culture

Review: Closer – ‘Where Marber fails’

Labyrinth Production’s staging of Patrick Marber’s 1997 play, Closer, was an ambitious move for a student-run production company. Ambitious as it was, the cast themselves put on a strong...

Review: JACK – ‘Gas-lit showstoppers, intrigue, and murder’

Jack The Ripper is arguably the most famous killer of the Victorian era. There...

September 5: Journalism drama doesn’t question the facts enough

Set during the 1972 Munich Olympics, Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5 tracks the ABC Sports...

Periodisation and the problem of now

Periodisation is the act of dividing literature into eras like Romanticism, Modernism, or Postmodernism...

The Lord Gave Me Brothers: Lockdown Lessons from Religious Lives

Angela Eichhorst writes about how we can learn from two religious communities, Greyfriars Franciscan Friary and the Buddha Vihara Temple, during the second lockdown.

The making of Bong Joon-Ho: Memories of Murder

Bong consistently backs up this technical precision with an attention to thematic and emotional detail that, combined with his now infamously anarchic approach to genre convention, renders him a singular force in the landscape of modern cinema

Damsels in distress? – The rise of the lesbian period drama

Kate Winslet catches Saoirse Ronan’s eye in the mirror, watching in the light of an oil lamp as she takes her corset off. Later, Ronan...

A Vision of Autumn

"It was uncommonly sultry and dark when I arrived at the Winchester water meadows. The scene was a near stereotype, and it reminded me of those decrepit - far too embellished - landscapes you see in many royal palaces."

Petrichor

"in a quiet hollow on the far side of this field rain patters through the leaves like twinkling glass"

Cherwell Recommends: Memoir

"Memoir is an exploration of the complex layers of human memory: fallible, emotional and moulded by subsequent reflection. Like life itself, memoir is messy - but all the more enjoyable for it."

What The Write Offs tells us about literacy in Britain

Nothing has hit me as hard as this minute of TV for months. I had been sat in my little ivory tower of ‘well, why didn’t they just learn?’, but now I felt all that come down.

Oxford artist spotlight: in conversation with LZYBY

Emerging from the depths of lockdown, Oxford-based singer LZYBY (George Cobb) has made light work of spelling ‘Lazy Boy’, and even lighter work of...

Atmospheric autumn reads: ‘Cemetery Boys’

"The novel shows us a utopian vision in which our ghosts can be cathartically released, in which rebirth and renewal is possible."

The Lord is a Warrior

"Now, God’s people are soon to flee, Into the wilderness and coarser sands He takes them, they at last are free, But I, loyal servant, loving wife, What is God’s plan for me?"

All treat, no terror – Halloween horrors for scardy cats

This year, Halloween is probably going to involve a movie night-in rather than a night out on the town. But not to fear! The...

Mercury Prize 2020: an apt event for a tumultuous year

It goes without saying that the music industry has faced more than its fair share of hardship this year. With gigs cancelled, arena tours...

Cherwell Recommends: Feminist Fiction

"Each of this week’s recommendations demonstrate that female voices are far more nuanced and diverse than fiction has traditionally led us to believe."

‘Change Is Your Responsibility’ – more than just a song

"When Paddy hit me up, I was like: this is 100% something I want to be the voice on."

Intimations of Closeness: what might a distanced theatre look like?

It would be a dramatic understatement to say that Covid-19 has been disruptive for the United Kingdom’s creative industry – but live drama is...

Identity and Identicality in Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half

"Tender and thought-provoking, The Vanishing Half offers a reflection on whether a person can choose who they are. In a world where Stella and Desiree represent black and white, Bennett embraces the grey area of personal, racial, and gendered identity."

A Letter To Those Whom my Light Will Guide, In Honour Of Those Whose Light Has Guided Me

"What you are, is complicated. And I love you for that, Because you are complicated, Because you are raw, and soft, and broken."

Return to Oxford

"A peal of percussive raindrops tumble from towering heavens. A lonely leaf joins the fray in a willowing, whispering wash."

Verbalisation

"Then there is a sudden pull – my loose thoughts spill over the pebbly surface of the page. Images crashing and breaking against sobering stillness, propelling seafoam into the air, rumpling the Edenic crispness of the page."

Paying Attention

"I wrote that the world feels too much of everything, that I am so lucky to be in it."

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