Thursday 4th June 2026

Culture

OUFF’s ‘The Oxford Tales’: Celebrating student filmmaking at Oxford

It’s no secret that Oxford has long been an idealised location for film sets; official-looking SUVs with blacked-out windows and attendants in high vis parading up and down Catte Street and around the Rad Cam are a not-unfamiliar sight.

Behind the red curtain: ‘Stories From an Abandoned Warehouse’ reviewed

Leo Jones reviews Crazy Child Productions' performance of 'Stories From an Abandoned Warehouse', the first English staging of the play.

Siskin

Near the riverside, a girl with walnut hair sat with her back to the...

Oxford on-screen: Historical atmosphere and fantasy worlds

Ideally, we should strike a balance; an awareness of the reality of life at Oxford can co-exist with an appreciation of its grand architecture and historical atmosphere.

Sex Education review: exuberantly explicit

It refuses to conform to the tiring tradition of sugar-coating anything that sits outside the realm of the PG-13

The illusion of reality television

Reality television is, then, in many ways a fiction. They tell us they are depicting something akin to an authentic reality, but flatten and stabilise the randomness and contingency of actual life, while refusing to overtly acknowledge the authorial voice behind it.

Cracked Actors: Invention and Reinvention in Music

A change of persona can yield new creative space and energy.

Review: ENRON – “absolutely captivating”

“Although he and Enron fall, the people who fall with it fall more” – Sour Peach Productions present a compelling and absurd take on the real-life financial scandal

The Long Con: The fine art of deception

It is very easy to be lulled into a false empowerment by the critical process, believing that the role can be as creative as can be observational.

#Cancelled: Disillusionment in the age of Twitter #MeToo

Watching Weinstein movies like Pulp Fiction, or as more recently discussed, listening to music by R Kelly, in a way are acts of undue forgiveness.

Review: House of Improv presents: I’m an Improviser Get Me Out of Here! – ‘relentlessly silly’

House of Improv presents an improvised hour of moon shoes, jacuzzis, and reckless fun

Satiating Sá-Carneiro

Exploring the life and work of an acclaimed Portuguese writer, at the heart of which lies the desire to discover.

Review: Gods are Fallen and All Safety Gone – ‘a relationship fraying at the edges’

Rose on a Rail's latest production provides a touching and intimate look into a complex mother-daughter relationship.

The Forgiveness Arc

Here are some of the best musical theatre songs centred around forgiveness

Resisting bodily urges: extreme asceticism in medieval female saints’ lives

The modern-day 'anorexia memoir' has its origin in the genre of medieval saints' lives

Mary Queen of Scots review: ‘artistic licence breathes life into history’

Rourke brings a fresh take on the fraught relationship between two women ruling in a man’s world.

Jenny Holzer at the Tate: An Exhibition for Instagram

Olya Makarova reviews Jenny Holzer's exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Pictures in the sandcastles

The artist as revolutionary is a wonderful image, and perhaps one that is forced upon creatives of our day. However, it is imperative to recall both the political power of artistic media, and the inherent ideology of created works.

Review: Frog’s Legs – ‘light-hearted façade with a dark core’

Shepherd-Cross' new play treads a fine line between offensiveness and good taste - is it all the better for it?

The Pitchfork Disney Preview – ‘a play of delight and disgust’

The Pitchfork Disney shows at the BT Studio this week

Create and destroy

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge” Mikhail Bakunin

The Human Impulse

Investigating the social and biological imperatives behind art

Sexualisation in music: liberation or objectification?

Art and creative expression have always made up our social and sensitive nature, from telling stories, to performing primal dances, to painting scenes of human experience on cave walls.

Why do we write?

We write for ourselves, for the reader, and for wider society.  And I think that’s probably a good enough reason to write an article for Cherwell.

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