If there’s something I’ve learned about plays, it’s not to judge one by its online plot summary. The one for Closer briefly informed me that the story centred around the love lives of two men and two women, and made a general claim to an exploration of love and honesty. Sound like another pretentious drama dressing up unhappy marriages as the perfect depiction of our alienating society? Then buy a ticket and prepare to be amazed.

Closer is a play of banal settings with everyday extremes. Condensed into this busy and fluid dialogue is a core of real humanity – neither too coldly imperfect, nor too heatedly idealistic – just right. The key to its success can be found in the tight fusion of tear-jerking climaxes and dry joviality. If you want the recipe, it is a delicate balance of egg sandwiches (no crusts), philosophy and internet dating sites, all nonchalantly mingling with together like guests at an art exhibition.

I mentioned internet dating sites; this was one of the highlights of the set. None of the props were flashy, in fact the projected images of the Windows 98 start-up screen (complete with dial-up sound effects) and ‘LondonFuck’ chatroom seemed to be the most high-tech that it got. I won’t spoil the hilarious surprises, which such a setting will inevitably entail, and will move swiftly on to the conveniently exciting feature of two scenes in one. Three characters, two dialogues, one dinner table – do the maths, and you’ll come up with a sum of genius proportions.

The pauses were so well timed, the joins so seamless, the change in coloured lighting was almost necessary to remind any baffled onlookers that one dialogue was (in all senses of the word) a flashback. It was not just in this scene, but in the rapid transition between all twelve different places and times that the real ambition and achievement shone through. Not every scene change was utterly stream-line, but the background-noise sound effects quickly stuck the imagination where it should have been, and carefully appropriate funky rock tunes made the pauses in between perfectly pleasant. In fact, it was actually a relief to have a little time to fit each piece into the puzzle.

As intimately realistic as this play was, it still sought to remind its viewers of the artistry behind it: four frames, one set out for each character to stand in, (resourcefully used as entrances and exits throughout), bookended the experience with a brave self-conscious. The characters, with their captivating quarrels and casual quips, presented the most honest lie that I’ve seen on stage in a long time.

FIVE STARS

Kissing the Floor is a very loose adaptation of Antigone – the geography of kingdoms, the culturally-loaded names and even the togas have all been dropped in favour of the modern world and popular culture. And, of course, there is the ever so slight addition of that topical elephant in the room, paedophilia. As if death, war and crazy incestuous parents weren’t difficult enough.

“What did you do to your hair?” Not exactly something that you’d expect from a paedophile meeting his sister for the first time in six years, but then again, what else can be said? The cast in Kissing the Floor are faced with a tight-rope walk between issues of abominable proportions and the natural, normal capacities of modern-day humans. Somehow, in amongst their nattering about Hollywood films, Annie and her “kinda different” brother Paul have to navigate their deep familial love for each other around the moral minefield of his crimes and urges. All this, squeezed into a few words and awkward pauses, with the occasional shudder. In some respects, I felt the dialogue was a little too stiff, a little too strained, especially when it should have been relaxed – but maybe that was the point.

You might think that a narrator figure might relieve some of this tension, perhaps give a little enlightenment. In fact, this performance has two, but the catch is that they are both characters who have simply stepped away from the action for a minute, only to rave about it and dump a wheelbarrow full of yet more rotten, seeping emotional compost onto each viewer’s head. The cynical, sarcastic Izzie may take centre stage long enough to thoroughly blacken our thoughts of Paul with her sickened words, but her subsequent pleas to her sister Annie are refuted by am idealistically loyal sense of kinship, although Annie herself knows, perhaps better than anyone, her brother’s monstrous tendencies. 

On the one hand, I expected a play with such delicate content to be slightly more sensational, in that it might try and present a stronger case for the humanity of criminals. Instead, the struggle was fairly equal, if not slightly conventional in Annie’s losing battle against an unforgiving society. But then again, what else is to be expected from a Greek tragedy? The fact that there is no one giving Annie a medal for her defiant and desperate love for her repulsive brother is eerily piteous. Moreover, without her failure, there would be nothing to be pitied, and no chance of a reconciliation (at least in emotion if not in social changes). Thus the mad method of the Greek tragedy unravels itself in this modern, thought-provoking adaptation.

FOUR STARS

The Shake-Cake-Bake-Off  @ the Turl Street Kitchen

One of the stranger events of Bardfest was the Shakespeare-themed cake competition, the ‘Shake-Cake-Bake-Off’. On the afternoon of 22nd May people flocked to the library of the TSK with their cupcakes, sponges and biscuits for a celebration of ‘Shakey Baking’. With G&D’s judging and awarding prizes, the atmosphere was tense as the bakers passive-aggressively proffered their wares for tasting. One of the entries was a group of cupcakes emblazoned with letters spelling out ‘Alas Poor Damien’. The sequence was concluded with a cake depicting a skull. After staring blankly at this culinary display for a while, the link was explained to me: it was a reference to Damien Hirst, whose famous diamond encrusted skull is a bit like that one in Hamlet, which is addressed in the play with the famous words, ‘Alas Poor Yorick’. Hmmmm. Who knew food could be so intellectualised: cakes that comment on flagging artistic credentials? If you fancied tasting one of the cakes you had ensure the sequence still made a word. The winner of the competition was a trio of cupcakes decked in flowers and glitter and labelled ‘Titania’, ‘Oberon’ and ‘Peaseblossom’. A deserving winner in my opinion: easy to understand and consumable without any semantic challenges.

Carmella Crinnion

Montagues & Capulets @ Brasenose College Chapel

What do Prokofiev and Taylor Swift have in common? Romeo and Juliet, apparently, as Oxbard Fest 2012’s Montagues and Capulets displayed in an enjoyable, if frankly slightly bizarre evening of musical couplings which saw songs from Dire Straits performed alongside instrumental selections from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Opening with the rousing overtures of Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ suite (made notorious through Apprentice fame), the gild and panelling of Brasenose’s 17th century chapel provides an interesting, but not overwhelming backdrop to the music of literature’s most epic tragic romance. With strong performances from all, special mention should be extended to Jaymee Coonjobeeharry on the flute for a performance both beguiling and well executed (and for having a pretty terrific name, let’s be honest). Sophie Giles sang strongly in her rendition of Taylor Swift’s ‘Love Story’, but attempting to elevate pop schmaltz into any kind of meaningful ballad is always a difficult endeavour. Likewise, Jack Graham singing Dire Straits’ ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was solid and convincing but with only the soft accompaniment of the piano, the overall effect fell a little flat. In comparison to the emotionally wrought falsetto from the Killers’ Brandon Flowers in the band’s 2007 cover, the lack of a pained, highly strung energy seems palpably absent. While putting such a medley of genres on the same bill may seem at best, eccentric and at worst thematically incoherent, this should not detract from what was ultimately an evening of well-executed, well-rounded and highly engaging musical proficiency. A resplendent start to Oxbard Fest 2012.

Olivia Arigho-Stiles

Lend Me Your Ears @ Ashmolean

Set in the beautiful Randolph Sculpture Gallery of the Ashmolean, the concept of the show was to marry Shakespeare with a variety of modern music. The first half of the show consisted musical performances of twentieth century composers Igor Stravinsky and Howard Blake, both of whom wrote song cycles set to and inspired by Shakespearean verse. The performances were musically adept but it was often hard to hear the lyrics, a drawback considering the theme of the event.
Happily, there were no such problems in the second half which saw performances from two of Oxford’s favourite a cappella groups, Out of the Blue and The Oxford Gargoyles, both of whom were superb. Each group performed a set of songs, prefaced by a reading of an extract from a Shakespeare play or sonnet. The idea being that the audience frame the song they were about to hear through the thematically similar extract and thus find new meaning therein. Although the connection wasn’t always obvious, the idea was a good one and the listener couldn’t help marvelling at the continued relevance of the works of the great Bard. Considering this was the purpose of the event, it was, all in all, a great success.

Patrick Scott

Banter of the Bard @ Worcester Gardens

Closing the Shakespeare Festival is ‘Banter of the Bard’; Katie-Ebner Landy, student at Oriel and organiser describes the event as ‘enjoyable, light entertainment, a night filled with music, food, drink and Shakespeare.’ In one evening seven scenes will be performed in Worcester Gardens, with the audience voting for their favourite act. ‘We wanted to do something different,’ Ebner-Landy tells Cherwell, ‘not just another play in a garden. That’s why we turned it into a competition’. The idea arose from the wish to bring theatre into other areas of entertainment, to not just keep as a separate art. They decided to turn it into ‘a proper fest’ with the audience seated on cushions in the middle, surrounded by 4 stages. Phoebe Braithwaite, co-director of the Midsummer Night’s Dream scene, states that the setting of Worcester gardens is perfect for the event, describing them as ‘genuinely rural and very idyllic’. The different plays being performed are a combination of traditional and new scenes, including classics such as Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night. All food and drink is centred around the Shakespeare theme, with ‘Shrewdrivers’ and ‘Much Ado about Muffins’ on sale throughout the evening. Although the scenes have been put together by individual groups, the entire event will be hosted and brought together by MC Will Mendelowitz from Worcester, ‘The Bard’. The MC introduces each new act taking on a variety of appearances, including dance critic and naughty schoolboy. Braithwaite explains, ‘It’s a mind-trick for the audience with Will appearing as recognisably himself, but in different guises.’ The final night will see Worcester Provost and Shakespeare expert, Jonathan Bate, who holds a position on the board of the Royal Shakespeare Company, as special guest and judge. Ebner-Landy encourages all to come and enjoy ‘a great night and something which has never been done before. After all the plays shown during the Shakespeare festival, this competition will be a fun finish. See it as the final festival of the entire festival.’
Banter of the Bard takes places on the 3rd, 4th and 5th June in Worcester Gardens.

Isabelle Gerretsen

Titus Andronicus @ University Parks

Revenge, murder, rape, people baked in pies –  the perfect way to spend a summer evening.  With a character survival rate of about ten per cent, Titus Andronicus is not your standard light hearted garden-variety Shakespeare comedy.  Nevertheless, sitting on the grass of University Parks, drinking Pimm’s and eating G&D’s makes for a pleasant evening, even with the constant, gratuitous violence of one of the Bard’s least respected plays. Admittedly, director Rebecca Claire Thomas toned it down a little by substituting the blood for red ribbons strewn generously over the grass, though perhaps went too far in the inclusion of a slightly irritating and overused drum.  The purpose of it was presumably to add ‘dramatic’ emphasis to certain lines and events; a nice concept, but it may have required a slightly more judicious use. The acting, for the most part, was passable.  A few of the central characters (Dionne Farrell as the titular general especially) were well-acted, though the remainder are mostly there to read out their lines in a suitably angry, sad or pleading fashion, depending on the prevailing mood.  This is, not by any stretch, an especially good piece of drama. It is, however, outside: the glorious sun will likely blind you to this production’s various deficiencies, and, for the £3 you pay, it’s a perfectly pleasant evening.

Angus Hawkins

A Shakespearean Evensong  @ New College Chapel

Before the English Reformation, English choral composition enjoyed a richness it was not to recover until Handel in the eighteenth century and Britten in the twentieth. This was an era before polyphony was seen as a barrier to worship, an immoral practice. Choral music was rich, contrapuntal, extravagant.  The nationally acclaimed New College choir led by Edward Higginbottom performed some of these extravagant compositions in the shockingly ornate New college chapel. The frieze of saints stacking above each other like symbols at a catacomb; the eighteenth century glass windows illumined by this Great British Summer. Though the flyers for Bardfest were outside, there was no mention of it. The evensong service was performed as it has been for centuries. The choir process: small boys delicate or ungainly (clearly none of them good at sport), ruffed like little Philip Sidneys, precocious attendants of the liturgy. The service was advertised as singing the music Shakespeare might have heard : choral responses were by the composer Thomas Morley and by William Byrd. The anthem was Weelkes’ ‘Alleluia, I heard a voice’, a profuse and fluid stream of sound (Spotify it). The joy of polyphonic music is watching how casually the melody, or even the voice that you can pick out of the group, is tossed from singer to singer. It’s easy to think of Shakespeare as a modern man, an urban rebel, but he certainly went to church and would have been familiar with the divine services. Perhaps we underestimate the effect of antiphonal singing on dialogue, and the witty ripostes of lovers are heir to the call and response of choirs.

Christy Edwall

‘Hiya kids. Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don’t buy drugs. Become a pop star, and they give you them for free!’ So says Bill Nighy’s character in the hit 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually. However, Nighy’s thoughts in real life could hardly be more different. Speaking with our reporter Xin Fan after his talk at the Union, he sums up his wisdom in a nutshell: ‘Don’t take drugs and pay your taxes, and don’t take anyone’s reputation at face value.’

Having previously graced its chamber in 2004, Nighy’s visit to the Oxford Union was an encore, albeit a delayed one. Whilst most Union speakers have specific agenda in addressing the university (Peter Andre, we’re looking at you) Nighy didn’t dwell on any of his current projects, preferring to ruminate on past performances, and his bemusement at acting in a bodysuit for CGI purposes. What, then, brings him back? ‘I don’t do a great deal of this sort of thing, but I do occasionally think I have something a bit different and practical to say to young people who aspire to act. I flat- ter myself that you don’t get that information everywhere.’ Evidently a humble man, which he is both in background and in person, Nighy clearly felt honoured to be invited to the Union, greeting the awed silence that met his ar- rival with a simple, ‘Fuck.’ 

Nighy is well qualified to comment on, well, life. His career has spanned several decades and has seen him receive numerous accolades for performances in films as diverse as The Girl in the Cafe and Shaun of the Dead. At times, Nighy’s emphasis on what he calls ‘finding another level of naturalism and working as myself’ has been stretched, never more so than when he played half-man, half-squid Davy Jones in the second of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Nighy might be striving for naturalism but he is as well known for his mannered delivery, à la Love Actually, as he is for his acting chops. There are noticeable inflections in Nighy’s personality, which often resemble those of some of his onscreen counterparts. The blurred line doesn’t bother Nighy. ‘Every actor thinks they’re doing a huge character job until they see the film and go “oh, that’s exactly like me”.’

When it does come down to encouraging Oxford students to try following in his footsteps, Nighy is cautious. The acting life seems to him pretty similar to that of a ‘professional gambler’, and he said that he is certainly under no illusions about his own ‘enormous good fortune’. The risks, he says, ‘are enormous. Bright, educated, lovely people I know have been affected by such ambitions, and not all achieve success.’

But Nighy is a risk-taker, a massive bungee enthusiast, and he wants to leave the door open for those who have a profound desire to emulate his acting success. The most important thing for Nighy is the craft itself, and for all its uncertainties, it is still, for him, ‘a primary art; an honourable tradition.’ And after all, as Nighy aptly puts it, ‘The world is precarious anyway. So what the heck.’