Culture

Review: Allegro Pastel by Leif Randt

Tanja Arnheim and Jerome Aimler are Millennials in a long-distance relationship. Tanja is a Berlin-based novelist and Jerome a Frankfurt-based web designer. They text regularly and occasionally visit one...

Please, no more biopics!

A few weeks ago, Sam Mendes announced his casting for the Beatles biopics he...

Writers on Writing: Reflections on the 2025 Oxford Literary Festival

The Oxford Literary Festival is one of those events I hear about every year,...

Your essential guide to the music of May Day

May Day: It’s unique, convivial and quintessentially Oxford. Only once a year does the...

Lights, camera, Liaisons

It will undoubtedly be the one of the most all-out, technically spectacular shows that Oxford student drama has seen in a long time.

Review: May We Be Forgiven by A.M Homes

Weird and wonderful. Heavy at times, strange throughout, but uplifting to the end. An incredible read.

The best books I read this summer

In a desperate attempt to extend the holiday, here are the best books I read this summer...

‘Glitz, glamour, pizzazz’: In conversation with The Great Gatsby

This weekend, I sat down with Mina Moniri and Peter Todd, the co-writing/co-directing duo of a brand-spanking new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

Review: The Safe Keep by Yael Van der Wouden

In not necessarily liking Isabel, we are free to understand her, even if this understanding does boil down to something rather simple.

Ticketmaster hurts student concert culture

Competitive, difficult, and opaque. All words associated with the Oxbridge admissions process. More recently, however, they have been used by disappointed Oasis and Coldplay fans in relation to Ticketmaster.

Celebrating two centuries of the National Gallery

Flo Wolter reflects on the impact and legacy of the iconic institution, now in its 200th year.

‘warþ gasric grorn, þær he on greut giswom’ [Fish sad when washed to shore] – The Franks Casket

hronæsbansorrowful, weeping tears of salttaken, hunted, harpoonedfrom my blue lagooncrafted by you into this box. hronæsbancarve me, recalcitrant though I ammay my banhus tell both...

Review: Joker: Folie à Deux

Joker: Folie a Deux is ultimately too disjointed and unnecessary to win Oscars or make headlines.

The Graduate took on generational divides

From its start, The Graduate shows its audience that Ben is alienated from the older generations. At the party his parents throw to celebrate...

Dame Maggie Smith’s Oxford beginnings, from Mansfield to McGonagall

Now nearly a month since the news of the actress’ death, aged 89, we can reflect on Smith’s extraordinary career and her connections to the city that started it all. 

Books you can’t sink your teeth into: A brief look into unsolvable manuscripts

If there’s one thing that most people appreciate, it’s a good mystery with a clever solution. It is no accident that Agatha Christie is...

Review: Will Heaven Fall on Us? A Béla Tarr Retrospective

Will Heaven Fall on Us? A Béla Tarr Retrospective, which aired in cinemas this summer, confirms the status of the Hungarian director as an...

Has the romantic comedy lost its charm?

The romantic comedy genre is often criticised for its overreliance on tropes. The romcom is, after all by, designed to be light and fun....

Palimpsest

This is a secular city, built on holy bones. We’re on the edge of another fissure. Nothing so grand as a revolution. But the grey...

2024 was for the girls: The rapid success of female artists

The last nine months of pop can perhaps be summed up in one word: ‘Femininomenon’. The title of Chappell Roan’s 2023 hit, a portmanteau...

Oxford’s Alternotives take the Fringe

This August, the Oxford Alternotives joined the ranks of Oxford performers heading to the Edinburgh Fringe. For our twelfth Fringe performance, we brought a...

The art of rowing: In conversation with Emily Craig

After a formidable finish in the Lightweight Women’s double sculls at the 2024 Paris Olympics in August, Team GB’s Emily Craig and Imogen Grant...

On Leadership by Tony Blair, Precipice by Robert Harris, and Oxford crime – Books of the Month

On Leadership by Tony Blair; Precipice by Robert Harris; Lessons in Crime: Academic Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards

North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order review – “An excellent account”

Dr Edward Howell, whose columns in the Spectator and the Telegraph are among the few intelligent and readable things left in those outlets, has...