Monday 18th August 2025

Culture

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 everyday' on his New Year's...

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...

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...

Reading Oxford books in Oxford

For those who have not even set foot in Oxford, the city still lives...

Review: Kali Uchis’ ‘Sin Miedo (del Amor y Otros Demonios) ∞’

As any even casual listener of Kali Uchis (born Karly-Marina Loaiza) will know, she has simply never dropped a bad song. And I’m not...

It was All a Dream: Escapism and Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

Dreams seem to straddle this boundary between fiction and reality, often informed by real life or perhaps made to help us cope with it.

Review: Simulacrum

Written and directed by Helena Aeberli and Riana Modi, Simulacrum is the first play on the Oxford drama scene specifically designed for online production,...

Who’s who: Ai Weiwei

But the deserted building in Chaoyang was no criminal lair—it was an art studio. And the man arrested at the airport, far from being a hardened felon, was Ai Weiwei: filmmaker, visual artist, and one of the most outspoken political dissidents in China.

All I Want for Oxmas…

When the crystal ball was dusted off in January 2020, The Atlantic predicted that the next decade would “look very different from what most people expect.” Little did we know how true that statement would be.

Forgive me, Katherine Mansfield, for I have sinned.

"The essay I would go on to write, and, reader, the article I had drafted and readied for this very publication, would, I see now, have Mansfield, alongside pretty much every other writer of fiction, willing to cross both space and time in order to beat me around the head with a copy of Crime and Punishment."

La vita davanti a sé: Sex, death and Sophia Loren

Long time, no see! Sophia Loren, Italian star of ‘60s classics such as 1963's Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow and 1964's Marriage Italian Style, commands...

The HAPPIEST SEASON to be queer

With Christmas comes family and with family comes movies. It’s that time to cuddle up cosy on the sofa and watch yet another Reese...

A Worm on What If

"A delicate chain bobs around his neck (his neck being the whole length of his body, which is just one long neck really); he bought it after watching Normal Worms. Maybe if he looked like worm-Connell, he imagines, things would have been different. Maybe worm-Sharon wouldn’t have left him for worm-Darren."

I like what you like: lockdown albums and decision fatigue

"Lockdown has heightened our collective experience of album drops. In a time of physical separation, bonding over a shared auditory experience is a privilege we haven’t taken for granted."

Making Queer Cinema history: Victim (1961)

"‘Victim’ illuminates an important moment in the history of LGBTQ+ rights, primarily in normalising the existence of homosexuality and encouraging empathy."

Eagerly Anticipating: Sex Education Series 3

"I am desperately hoping Sex Education returns as planned in January – we don’t need any more bad news this year."

Between a rook and a hard place: Female ambition in The Queen’s Gambit

The Queen’s Gambit is refreshing because it offers a model of masculinity that is neither toxic nor fragile, but supportive and generous.

Review: V-Card

"an immersive play of laughter, vulnerability and truth"

Benchmark

"The pattern starts from you to there And, breathless, starts again with me."

You’ll See Him

"Rain cracks its whip Against the windows. The wielder: autumn. From the cottage in the cleft of the foothills You can see a flickering light, just out of sight And it stains the blackest night."

Soil: On Digging a Hole

"A worm has beaten me to the hole I’m digging; when I pull apart the soil, I find a slender punctuation mark in the mud. Its pink body threads through the dark clay."

Review: Gorillaz’ ‘Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez’

2020 sees the release of the third Gorillaz album in four years. With previous efforts Humanz and The Now Now being somewhat lacklustre affairs,...

In conversation with Normal People Director, Lenny Abrahamson

“It’s about trusting the capacity of the actors, but also the ability that human beings have to read each other. We do it all the time, we put together very strong pictures of how people are from very little.”

Eat, Sleep, Create, Repeat: An Artistic Odyssey

"As an emotional writer of poetry, I’ll only ever put pen to paper in fits of extreme feeling, using it as an outlet when I feel that I cannot turn to anyone. It seems to be the closest I’ll get to the divine inspiration, with the Muse replaced by anger or loneliness." Maebh Howell takes us on an artistic Odyssey around the pressures of constant creativity.

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