Thursday 30th October 2025

Culture

‘Fright’s Out!’ at the Ultimate Picture Palace: ‘Dracula’s Daughter’

To call Dracula’s Daughter (1936) campy would be an understatement. In many ways it felt like a ridiculous version of Cat People (1942). At one point, examining the body...

‘A team of criers’: Behind the scenes of ‘Uncle Vanya’

Nothing makes me more excited about a theatre production than hearing a director talk...

Grappling with ‘grief that’s half formed’: Your Funeral

“Meeting up with a partner so soon after a breakup is an awkward time...

“NOR GLOM OF NIT?”: ‘Going Postal’ reviewed

“NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR GLOM OF NIT CAN STAY THESE MESENGERS ABOT THEIR...

Of bops and bargains

“I mean we are doing something to slow it down, but this fashion is still going very fast.” With this statement hanging in the air,...

Review: Haim’s ‘Women in Music Pt. III’

As with other albums scheduled for 2020, the release date for Women in Music Pt. III experienced an upheaval. Having moved from its original...

Coming down from Eden: the darkening sounds of Sly and the Family Stone

No band – on record or off – better encapsulated the demise of the sixties and that era’s spirit of excited possibility than Sly...

Reading the Room

"plays are meant to be performed"

Review: Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’

Usually, Taylor Swift begins a new album cycle with a blank slate. Instagram is cleared of any record of previous ‘eras’. Easter eggs are laid out...

Friday Favourite: The Death of Ivan Ilyich

"The novella’s real focus is the inevitability of death itself, which is so gargantuan, physically and philosophically, that retrospection is crushed into irrelevance."

Unclichéd and unabashed: LGBTQ+ storytelling at its best

Many a list of the ‘Top 10 LGBT films’ can be found online. Undoubtedly, another handful of these lists have popped up during pride...

Reviving my Childhood – Avatar: The Last Airbender

The year was 2005 and at the time, it was just another Nickelodeon show I’d force my sister to sit through with me. But it quickly became more than that,

The beauty of bedroom pop

The bedroom can feel like an inner sanctum, a personal hideout away from the public. Therefore, there seems to be a contradiction in bedroom pop becoming...

The future of bookshops is more uncertain than ever

"In the wake of Covid-19, it remains to be seen whether bookshops will continue to encourage our love of browsing."

History of Ideas: talking politics and escaping science

This podcast is a godsend. It’s like a crash course in ideology, philosophical chat with a friend and yogic meditation all rolled into one.

“Helpless”: Whatever Happened to Maria Reynolds?

Fear not, those of us who were unable to afford tickets to Hamilton on Broadway – for the mere cost of selling your soul...

Veraneio

"Raised in the endless, relentless summer of tropical living, snapshots of summer swamp my memories of childhood – beachside days, aching sunburns, blond locks tainted unflatteringly green by chlorinated pools."

A love letter to Oxford’s music scene

In a city of dreaming spires, where casual magic hangs in every cobbled lane at golden hour and each paradisal quad in bloom, I...

“The frailty of everything revealed at last”: dystopian fiction in a time of crisis

"Dystopian narratives may be bleak, but they do not contribute to the barbarity of our times: they are, instead, a powerful reminder that in the midst of crisis, beauty and hope do remain."

Theatre and the Working Class

When someone mentions British actors, who do you think of? Your mind probably jumps to people like Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston or Eddie Redmayne....

Cherwell’s albums of the year so far

Ten albums that we've judged to be among the best of this weird, weird year so far

Review: Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Punisher’

with each song, the world becomes blurrier, as if drunk, only to be immediately sharpened again with the piercing nature of Bridgers’ lyrics

Review: Khruangbin’s ‘Mordechai’

Part of Khruangbin’s marketing campaign for Mordechai features an update to their online playlist curator, AirKhruang. The 2015 website allowed listeners to create playlists for their...

‘The time to change is now’: Women behind the camera

We need to make a career as a female filmmaker seem possible, and to put pressure on the industry to give more women a chance

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