Saturday, May 3, 2025

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...

Freida Toranzo Jaeger’s Prophetic Glitter

Freida Toranzo Jaeger names her paintings like items in a manifesto: Extinction is the price we pay for our existence (2023), Open your heart...

Film around the world: Italy’s Suspiria

The first time I heard about Suspiria, I was nine and my babysitter was telling me I couldn’t watch it, shouldn’t even - that...

Sunak’s Samba with the fashion industry

In Rishi Sunak’s recent Downing Street Interview, his words and promises were certainly not the star of the show. Showing off his Adidas Sambas,...

The Human Body review: ‘A Socialist exploration of healthcare and romance’

I recently attended my first production at the Donmar (https://cherwell.org/2024/01/24/review-of-tennant-as-macbeth-an-auditory-experience/ - shameless self plug!) and fell in love with the energy of the space...

Ten Years to Save the West by Liz Truss review: Revenge of the lettuce

I have met Liz Truss only once. It was in Oxford Town Hall in November of last year and I had tried (without success)...

Cherwell Introducing: Phoebe Blue

Joining me this week is the radiant Phoebe Blue, a 2nd year classicist at Balliol, singer-songwriter, and bassist. Meeting me on a blustery Saturday...

Artificial insights: Decoding diversity and redefining art history with AI

In the age of AI-enhanced art, the possibilities for creativity and cultural exchange are limitless—and inclusive.

War, Peace and Writing

Throughout history, art has left an indelible cultural impact on humanity’s collective understanding of war. Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ is perhaps the most famous manifestation of...

Long Day’s Journey Into Night review

I walked into the Wyndham Theatre’s production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill half-expecting a night at the London Theatre like...

Film around the world – Turkey’s Atıf Yılmaz

Atıf Yılmaz was a Turkish film director. Until his death in 2006, he was extremely prolific and directed films across every decade of Turkish...

The Christ Church Picture Gallery review

The Christ Church Picture Gallery has free entry for Oxford students. It offers a chance to view one of the most impressive college art collections, with pieces spanning the 14th to 18th centuries

Men used to go to war – now they DJ

Why are so many people becoming DJs? This recent obsession has taken the world – and now Oxford – by storm. Love it or...

Matchstick Cats

Mark and Trev were surrounded on the bed of the truck by old wooden beams and bits of furniture – debris of a life...

The rise of genre fluidity: Is this the death of genre as we know it?

My favourite genre of music: a question I’ve found becoming increasingly difficult to answer over the years, and it’s only now that I’m discovering...

Memory and Narrative in Miguel Gomes’ Tabu

"Now approaching the 50th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution, I return to Miguel Gomes’ 2012 feature Tabu."

The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States, and the Middle East 1979-2003 by Steve Coll review

Tyrants should only be brought down by their own people; they become martyrs when brought down by foreigners.

Frank Auerbach’s Charcoal Portraits review: Self-Portrait of a Stranger

The Griffin Catalyst Exhibition, The Charcoal Heads, shows the early career of Frank Auerbach and the creation of his portraits in the 1950s and...

Post Diagnosis

"You could tell no one, And it would come anyway."

‘The Godfather: Part II’ at fifty

The Godfather: Part II is a film about gangsters. It is also a film about corruption, power, betrayal, succession, revenge, religion, marriage, generational change,...

An Enemy of the People review: ‘Tragic but thought provoking’

Ibsen has re-entered the drama scene with the current production of his classic play An Enemy of the People at the Duke of York...

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