Wednesday 5th November 2025

Theatre

Well-managed complexity: ‘In Praise of Love’ 

In Praise of Love by Terence Rattigan was a play well-chosen in today’s political context – it uses the unhappy relationships between Estonian immigrant Lydia (Nicole Palka), English former...

‘Extremely funny and emotionally intense’: ‘Your Funeral’ at the Burton Taylor Studio

Your Funeral is Pharaoh Productions’ debut play written by Nick Samuel, about the last...

‘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...

A day in the life of… a lighting director

I came to Oxford with very little backstage experience. It’s really easy to get into the scene—TAFF (the University network of backstage crew) is...

“If you’d told me a year ago I would never have believed it”

Katie Sayer chats to Callum Cameron, the writer and star of They Built It, No One Came – coming to Oxford following a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe and a sell-out week in London

An odd mix of Sophocles, Stoppard and Wilde

Katie Sayer gives four stars to Simon Callow's revival of a 1970s classic

A day in the life of… an assistant director

Rebekah King describes her role assistant directing Brontë, Polly Teale’s successful 2005 period drama

“An aspirational first performance”

Jacob Greenhouse is impressed by 'Blatavsky's Tower', the first production from newly founded company

“A little-known gem”

Thomas Player gives four stars to 'Dear Brutus', an underrated classic

“Sharp humour with profound philosophical underpinnings”

Giovanni Musella looks ahead at a new production of Blavatsky's Tower

“Elegant, witty, sophisticated, remarkable”: The ‘Philanthropist’

Katie Sayer and Emily Lawford meet the all-star cast of Simon Callow's production of 'The Philanthropist'

“Injections of humour amidst the Beckettian existential angst”

Emily Lawford is impressed by Leveaux’s revival of Tom Stoppard's meta-theatrical tragicomedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

“Love and humanity scattered amid the horror”

Emily Lawford enjoys a genuinely frightening production of Macbeth

A word from the stalls

Miriam Nemmaoui speaks to a tipsy audience member at Suzy Cripps’ 'The Optimists'

“Even while expecting an hour of postmodernist drama, I couldn’t have been more unprepared”

Katie Sayer recovers from the gripping and disturbing 'Marat/Sade' at the Keble O'Reilly

A disturbing worldview undercut by patchy acting

Olivia Cormack finds that it's not just the costumes in Contractions that need ironing out

“More gentle slap than sucker punch”

Katheryn Thompson finds Made in Dagenham lacking in political grit

“A bold and unapologetic production”

Surya Bowyer is frustrated by a powerful production of 'Suspiria' which comes so close to greatness

Anything but a simple fairy-tale

Ebere Nweze is impressed by this unnerving and sharp new adaptation of Wilde’s short story

“Young, classy and capable of mischief”

Jacob Greenhouse is impressed by the freshness of Consortium Novum’s production of The Marriage of Figaro

A word from the stalls

Miriam Nemmaoui chats to an audience member who is left feeling nostalgic by Anna Karenina

“An enormous array of talent on display”

Jonnie Barrow enjoys a bumpy ride through a musical twist on a classic

‘We’re going to do it better than Braveheart’

If your schooling was anything like Tom Fisher's, who is playing Ross in this new production of Macbeth, you studied the Scottish play in...

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