Saturday 5th July 2025

Culture

‘Pour summer in a glass’: retracing Dandelion Wine

“You did not hear them coming. You hardly heard them go. The grass bent down, sprang up again. They passed like cloud shadows downhill ... the boys of summer,...

Reviving the symposium at the Ashmolean Krasis programme

Dara Mohd, herself a Krasis Scholar, converses with Dr Jim Harris about his object-centred symposium program, Krasis, at the Ashmolean Museum.

‘This Room Their Lives’ in Magdalen College’s Waynflete building

Every Magdalen member remembers their first encounter with the Waynflete Building. Sticking out a...

In More, Pulp aren’t just trading on nostalgia – they’re fresh

In a year where many are talking about one Britpop band in particular –...

At the Station

A laugh into the silence, a step into the stillness, and a single breath seems to make the station tremble.

En Attendant

So sit on the roof and watch remotely The wind that makes the spires dance there, slowly

round

of feeling directional

Now That’s What I Call… Poetry?

Somebody once told me there are a lot of bad song lyrics out there. Imagine, for every subtle, elegant song you hear, there’s bound...

‘Normal People’ of Oxford

Those who have not yet seen the BBC Three series Normal People might be forgiven for wondering what the fuss is about. The 12-part...

The Sheldonian

That is the beauty of the concert. Music threading its way in and out of the thoughts of a hundred vague spirits in the audience.

Unterwegs

So let us meet at the station, then, and what happens after we can decide again

Affairs

like landmines or arms holding someone they love

The Muse in Film: Winona Ryder and Tim Burton

When Winona Ryder first met Tim Burton, they talked like old friends about movies and music for over half an hour before realising that...

Murakami’s ‘Killing Commendatore’: where art can transport you

Murakami’s Killing Commendatore got me thinking about art within literature. We can easily find examples of literature within art: Shakespeare’s Hamlet in Millais’ Ophelia,...

Ping-pong

Stupid rules are still rules

Review: The Madness of George III

Alan Bennett’s acclaimed 1991 exploration of George III’s first bout of mental illness and the constitutional crisis it triggered is reborn in this National...

Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ follows four main plots: the wedding of the king of Athens; the complicated love affairs between four young Athenians;...

Possessed by Muses

“There is also a third kind of madness, which is possession by the Muses, enters into a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring...

Navigating the Theatre Interval

Intervals. I know you have been dying to read an article about them for as long as you can remember, so I’ll put you...

Blasted: Sarah Kane’s Vision Today

Trigger Warnings- Rape and Violence Sarah Kane’s first play, Blasted, begins with the ageing Ian grooming his young girlfriend Cate in an expensive hotel room....

Classic Letdowns: Vanity Fair

Googling the words Vanity Fair brings up a popular publication, a 2004 movie starring Reese Witherspoon and a 2018 BBC show, and finally, the...

Ballet: bewitching, beautiful, bold

I have loved ballet all my life. Since day one it has been filled with Barbie ballet DVDs, ballet dolls and of course ballet lessons. While...

Has ‘Over the Rainbow’ been overcooked?

As ‘We’ll Meet Again’ rang through the streets of the UK on VE Day on Friday 8th May, with echoes of the previous night’s ‘Somewhere Over...

The Dangers of Genre-lisation

Within a week, the television adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People, which explores the oeuvre of two teenage lovers, was requested on BBC...

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