The scrap for survival in the Premier League is always a thrilling spectacle from the neutral’s perspective, but one with potentially devastating consequences for those involved. Last season, Burnley, Watford and Norwich City were relegated. While Burnley have already been promoted from the Championship to ensure an instant return to the top-flight, both Watford and Norwich are struggling to even make it into the play-off positions.
This season, the battle looks to be more thrillingly tense than ever, with just 10 points separating Wolves in 13thposition (34 points) from Southampton at the foot of the league (24 points).
The two teams at the bottom of the league, Nottingham Forest and Southampton, have both hit a poor run of form at the wrong time of the season. Southampton, however, did produce a wonderful 3-3 result away to league leaders Arsenal at the weekend, demonstrating significant attacking verve. Their game management can perhaps still be questioned, but such a performance must provide great encouragement. They have 6 games remaining to try and recover the 6-point deficit that separates them from the drop, but this includes daunting away days to Newcastle and more – I don’t see them picking up enough points to make up the ground.
Nottingham Forest may stand more of a chance at surviving, as despite only picking up a single point in their last 6 league games, they showed great threat in the 3-2 loss away at Liverpool at the weekend and were perhaps unlucky to leave Anfield without a point, with Brennan Johnson striking the crossbar late in the game. Their fixtures are relatively tough on paper, with 3 of their remaining 6 games against teams in the top half, as well a tricky away game against a resurgent Crystal Palace under Roy Hodgson.
The three teams I see battling it out to avoid the final relegation spot, therefore, are Everton, Leicester City, and Leeds United. All three teams have just 6 games left to play, with both Everton and Leicester on 28 and Leeds just a point ahead on 29. All the teams are in similarly unspectacular form of late, and even though Leeds have the most points of the three in their last six games (6), they have suffered devastating losses in the last 4 of the last 5 games, a concerning trend. Leeds crucially face Leicester in their next game which could prove decisive come the end of the season. Aside from that their run-in is highly varied, with games against Manchester City but also West Ham.
Leicester’s run is perhaps slightly more favourable, facing Newcastle, too, as well as Liverpool, but also with home games against Everton and West Ham on the final day. The fact that Leicester is set to face both Everton and Leeds in the run in could be enough to determine the fate of the three teams.
When Everton appointed Sean Dyche on the 4th February, many believed he was the perfect man to steer the club steadily away from the threat of relegation. This has not exactly been the case, however, with the club averaging 1.08 points a game since his appointment compared to 0.83 before. There has, therefore, been an improvement in results, but not a highly significant one. Again, their remaining fixtures are relatively mixed; but will the Toffees be able to able to pick up enough points to ensure their status as one of just 6 clubs that has never been relegated from the Premier League?
My verdict is yes, just. Both Everton and Leicester should just about scrape over the line at Leeds’ expense. Fortunately for Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Southampton fans is the sheer unpredictability of the Premier League. Each matchday is accompanied by various surprise results and no doubt they will continue to occur until the end of the season.
Image Credit:Solent Creatives//CC BY 2.0 via Flikr
Oxford University is the best university in the world. Coming here, I expected a culture of debate, academic challenges, and to be surrounded by students who would seek new ideas and adamantly defend their opinions once formed. For the most part, I am proud to come from a politically active university. However, after getting involved in the Oxford Union, I realise how some individuals avoid the opportunity to actively engage with and challenge those they disagree with.
This term, the Oxford Union has hit the student and national press by inviting Dr Kathleen Stock OBE to speak on her views about gender identity theory at the end of May. Stock gained notoriety in 2018 after opposing proposed changes to the 2004 UK Gender Recognition Act. These changes would allow people of any age to legally self-identify as a particular gender, without the requirement of a psychological or medical diagnosis. Last term, the Union made international headlines by hosting the Israeli Ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely, resulting in the President facing an invalid motion of no confidence and protestors chanting ‘Charlie, Charlie, you can’t hide, you’re supporting apartheid’. Along with hosting David Starkey in that same term, the Oxford Union is consistently at the heart of controversy. The student population in Oxford is fantastically outspoken, brave and intelligent, consistently voicing their opinions, protesting, writing for student papers and raising awareness online by condemning these speakers’ views, as well as the Union for hosting them. However, there seems to be an increasingly stark difference between the number of people who disapprove of such views and those willing to come to challenge them.
Challenging these speakers in person, and in front of peers, can be difficult. I don’t support young people who may already come from minority or oppressed groups having to take on the burden of defending their own rights in the chamber. I do, however, believe that, as much as I find some speakers offensive, the Union should not rescind invites on the basis of Oxford students disagreeing with their views. The Union does not create controversy for its own sake. Speakers are chosen because their opinions may be important for today’s discussions or appropriate to one side of a debate. With the Union remaining separate from the University, the former having been formed 200 years ago, it is the only place where students can have access to these conversations. To start selecting what is ‘beyond discussion’ feels like a slippery slope to losing a rare platform, which endeavours to challenge all opinions opening up the left-leaning student sphere to views we might otherwise never have been able to hear.
So why does the Union not cancel speakers?
At the centre of this debate is the idea of ‘platforming’. The Union was not made to platform, but to challenge speakers. As such, the Union neither platforms or de-platforms speakers. It would, for instance, be hard to argue that the Israeli Ambassador did not already have a significant platform before her invite to the Union. Admittedly, I did not know who Dr Kathleen Stock was until she appeared on the term card. Stock was, however, awarded an OBE. Surely the recognition of the state constitutes an existing platform? The comment heard so often when these speakers come is: ‘Nobody knows who they are, why is the Union raising awareness of these views?’ This is a fundamental problem, given that the student population is likely not to support preventing a ban on conversion therapy or prohibiting self-identification. Equally, there is a significant amount of people in the UK, and particularly in America, where Stock’s rhetoric is seen not as hateful but as reflecting the views of many. As the Union makes headlines around the world, it is responsible for providing a place for all views to be expressed, even if the student population does not agree with hosting certain people within their student sphere.
Like many, I came to this University to gain exposure to other opinions and to be encouraged to learn and understand views I might disagree with. I have spent the past week in silence not because I wanted to be complicit in harming a community, but to take the time to educate myself so that I can challenge Stock in the chamber. Everyone will respond to hurt differently, but rescinding her invitation also prevents people who are willing to challenge her from speaking. When the YouTube video of Stock is published, most of the viewers will either be those who follow her or those who despise her. There is no better way to support the trans community than going into the spaces that oppose it and bringing the challenge to them. Defending one’s right to exist is awful, and should not be anybody’s burden, but for those willing to speak directly to those who oppose their views, in a controlled environment, is an opportunity I think they should seize.
Rescinding an invitation or not inviting certain speakers also poses the question of how far free speech should go in this university and to whom it should not extend? Opening this up seems like opening a floodgate to an impossible challenge that could bring another harmful culture of comparing the offence experienced by different minority groups. For example, the Israeli Ambassador faced a large enough number of students who felt personally affected by her invitation that large protests could take place online or in person. But what would happen to smaller minority groups who feel equally attacked but cannot make as much noise to get invites rescinded? How would the Union decide which topics are off limits and which events will do more harm than good?
Finally, the core reason why so many speakers remain free to speak at the Union is that they are protected by Human Rights Law, namely freedom of expression. In Stock’s case, she has not currently committed hate speech, and her views as of 2021 are protected under the Equality Act of 2010, as gender-critical beliefs are protected. Thus, cancelling is not only a political battle but a legal one too. To ignore the rights of anyone simply because one opposes their views is, I believe, to stifle conversation and critical thinking.
‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it’. – Voltaire
As the Union celebrates its bicentenary year, its need to uphold free speech is stronger than ever as the world begins to face new challenges it has not recognised before. With Stock’s appearance at the Union coming against the backdrop of Florida Republicans calling for a bill to remove trans kids from their parents, the need for views like Stock’s to be challenged on the Union’s platform is not only important but necessary. The need to acknowledge the opinions of the community the Union sits in has become more important as students struggle to accept an institution that some so adamantly disagree with. The future of university cancel culture, free speech and the aim of building bridges between the Union’s global perspective and Oxford’s student-wide one remains unclear. Like many institutions, the Union has not always managed to challenge speakers properly. As such, it is valid to question whether or not it really does. However, with the Union standing and continuing to stand, I believe that its future relies on more members coming to challenge speakers rather than just protesting them online, where it is much easier to be ignored. As of last term, the Union now enables members to send in questions, meaning that those who may feel threatened by a speaker’s views do not need to enter the chamber but can know they will be heard. My only hope for the Union and for students of this university is that enough of have the strength to question speakers like Stock, David Starkey and the Israeli Ambassador in person, allowing us to challenge, not de-platform, them.
Image Credit: U.S. Department of State//Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
I don’t normally write reviews, but this was so good I felt I had to. And the director definitely didn’t ask me.
The audience of Kian Moghaddas’ A Poet and a Scholar was in hysterics pretty much the entire way through. The play centres around Nico (Ethan Bareham), a restrained scholarly type given to reading books upside-down and presumably familiar to many Oxford students. But it’s his addiction to museums that leads his housemates Eli (exuberant, flamboyant and without filter, played to perfection by Aymen Aulaiwi) and Sam (drug addict given to snorting lines with the morning coffee and talking to herself, played by Kay Kassanda) to stage an intervention and lock him in the flat.
The set is decked out like a museum: when we walk into the Pilch there are paintings hanging on the walls with amusing descriptions, including one of Bareham himself (which, during the show, he steals as a present for Eli, claiming it looks ‘nothing like him’) and a printed photo of Bruce Forsyth, for a reason that remains unknown throughout the show, except to have his ‘sexiness’ commented on by one of Nico’s fellow museum-goers (Anna McKay).
The premise of the play is simple but paves the way for hilarity. A security guard (Fabian Bourdeaux) catches Nico stealing the painting (of himself) and attempts to steal it back from him. Nico escapes his enforced incarceration by means of a neighbour’s spare key, retrieved by the aid of his parents (Chess Nightingale and Warwick Wagner), who make a fantastic pair, the mother as the overbearing yoga-obsessed type and the ‘teetotal’ father who couldn’t really care less about anything going on around him.
A key feature of the play is a pattern of frequent blackouts during scene changes, as we move between the flat and the museum. During these changes, a pre-recorded podcast plays, introduced by its hosts as ‘Born This Gay: London’s leading gay podcast, except for all the others.’ These hosts are Eli himself and his friend Edison (Luna Arthur), who should be commended on his marvellous Welsh accent. Eli is open, Edison more reserved, and innuendos abound. It was an absolute treat to listen to, and a skilful way of avoiding losing the audience during the blackouts. In fact, the blackouts had a soundscape in themselves, ranging from snickering to full on hysterics. I spoke to a friend who admitted they ‘nearly passed out’ from laughter.In what is perhaps an inevitable conclusion, Nico and his housemates agree on a compromise in order to heal their simmering living situation: they go on the proper kind of museum trip: one on acid. This was where I thought things tipped slightly over into the absurd — all of a sudden Nico gets hit by a car (or, for Eli’s drugged mind, an orangutan with a number plate). However, the actors were clearly given free license to more or less do whatever they wanted during this scene, and their energy was infectious. At the play’s end, the Pilch still resounded with people’s laughter, and I was left with no doubts that Kian’s play will be a hit at the Brasenose arts week, where it is headed next, before the Edinburgh fringe under its new name: The Museum Trip.
After 927 continuous years, The University of Oxford has announced that Trinity Term 2023 will be its last term ever. “We think it’s time,” said Vice Chancellor Irene Tracey. “It’s important to know when one has overstayed one’s welcome, and so we will be packing up this operation once and for all after the end of exams.”
Classes have been convened in the area that is now University of Oxford since around the year 1096. Over hundreds of years the University grew into one of the most prestigious on Earth. “But nothing lasts forever,” said Tracey.
According to sources, the costs of keeping Oxford running had gone well over budget. While several donors offered to bail out Oxford, the University instead has decided to sell itself to a venture capital firm that intends to liquidate the University in order to pursue more profitable, efficient education enterprises.
Oxford has confirmed, however, that several spin-off universities are in the works now. The plans for these sub-franchises will be unveiled over the next several months, but rumor has it that Magdalen College and the Blavatnik School of Government may become their own brands within the next ten years. It is yet to be seen whether any of these spin-offs will be as successful as the classic Oxford tribute University, the University Cambridge.
Messages of sadness came from all corners of the world after Oxford made the announcement, with many world leaders current and former expressing their disappointment. “We’ll be sad to see it end, best night I ever had was at Oxford” said former PM David Cameron. “I am devastated but it is difficult to remain reliable and faithful for so long and never falter,” said Bill Clinton, a one-time Rhodes Scholar. “Thems the brakes,” said Boris Johnson.
Minor spoilers ahead: you’ll know more than if you just watched a trailer, but not enough to spoil the film massively.
Super Mario Galaxy 2 was my favourite game growing up. Not that I played much – I was the Player 2 star, Luma, meaning my abilities were limited to lazily grabbing the occasional bonus coin while Player 1 flailed about as Mario.
The cynics of the cinema might suggest Nintendo are out to grab a few bonus coins themselves with The Super Mario Bros. Movie, over 800 million at the current count. They might be right about the profit, but they’re wrong about the movie.
Usually you get a plot synopsis here, but what’s the point? Mario ends up in the Mushroom Kingdom, Bowser’s coming and he’s got Luigi. If you get lost at any point, Peach or Toad will drop in a bit of expositionary dialogue to boost you along. Let the fun begin.
The animation is bold and beautiful. Perhaps it doesn’t have the panache of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse or Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, but Nintendo has aimed high when it comes to colour, creativity and delivering a good “camera” angle instead of animating everything like a Mario game level.
Credit to the filmmakers for the casting. I was worried Chris Pratt as Mario was going to sound like me trying to order Fettuccine Alfredo at my local Italian, but him and Charlie Day make you forget all that nonsense you read online within the first few minutes. Charlie Day as Luigi is, if anything, underused, and the brotherly relationship is one of a couple of neat character angles Matthew Fogel serves up to you like a homemade lasagne.
You can see why the critics aren’t fans: the plot looks suspiciously like various bits of Mario IP stitched together with a few “yahoos!”; Seth Rogen’s Donkey Kong section in the middle doesn’t reward you half much as a halfway flag in a Mario level; the screenwriters have tried so hard to power-up Anya Taylor-Joy’s Princess Peach, she’s sadly ended up as a heroine so flat it’s as if she’s been ground-pounded, and only serves to remind us how Bowser is definitely very, very evil. Sure, the soundtrack is like having every Mario tune from the last 40 years stuffed in your ears, but what else were you buying the ticket for?
Jack Black is an obvious score as Bowser, once you get over the initial fact it sounds as if Po from Kung Fu Panda has gone through a very concerning moral and physical transformation. The marriage angle on the character uses Jack Black’s skills to the maximum and elevates his relationships with others to more than just evil Bowser.
I can’t decide about the pacing. On the one hand, the movie dashes along like Rainbow Mario and delivers an hour and a half of psychedelic but carefully-trimmed fun. There are points though, particularly with the Mario and Luigi relationship, Peach’s backstory, or Po’s Evil Twin – sorry, Bowser – just jamming out on his piano, where you want a little more. Oh well, it’ll be a franchise at this rate.
Does Mario one-up other video game-movie competitors such as Sonic? Absolutely. It’s sitting on a far richer world and has better characters, so even when there’s no good reason for a Bullet Bill to appear, I don’t mind that much. Mario doesn’t have to compromise with the real world and live-action characters like Sonic: it delivers a white-gloved punch of animated joy.
If you know your Goombas from your Koopas and your Kameks from your karts, this movie will make you feel like you’re sitting back at whichever Nintendo console you first met that little, moustached man. If you’re a film aficionado who thinks a Mini Mushroom is what they’re searching you at airports for, then maybe not. Looking for deep and meaningful cinema? Wait for Barbie in July instead. But for the person looking for a way to switch off, grab your Luigi and cry “Mamma Mia!”: Super Mario, as it always has been, is the way to let’s-a-go.
Ostensibly centred around the affair of the married Haider with the transgender Biba, Joyland brims with moments of queerness. Director Saim Sadiq presents us with what seems to be a typical Pakistani family, which reveals itself to be the site of transgressive acts of desire and gender expression.
The husband-wife dyad of Haider (Ali Junejo) and Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) is played out in unconventional terms. The opening scene follows Haider, shrouded in a bedsheet, as he runs through the familial house playing with his young nieces. We then discover his casual and sporadic employment, that it is Mumtaz who plays the breadwinner while Haider supports his sister-in-law, Nucchi, in the running of the multigenerational household. The marriage is unconventional: sexless, yet platonic. It is only when Haider finds employment, restoring the normative marital structure, that things fall apart. Mumtaz is forced by the patriarch, Rana, (Salman Peerzada) to leave her job, and it is at Haider’s place of work, an erotic dance theatre, that his affair with Biba (Alina Khan) blossoms.
Yet, even in this restoration of surface-level patriarchal order, queerness persists. The domestic quasi-confinement of Mumtaz and Nucchi (Sarwat Gilani) becomes a space for female homosocial relationships akin to that in Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1996). A scene in which the pair visit a carnival together becomes a focal point of female intimacy, with Sadiq and Maggie Briggs’ masterful script interposing the women’s closeness with Nucchi’s cries for mercy as they are propelled forward and backward on a pirate ship ride.
Joyland has had a fraught journey to the silver screen. Despite a strong debut at Cannes last year, where the film was met with a standing ovation and awarded a Queer Palm, Joyland was marred by controversy in Pakistan. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a country with a troubled record on LGBTQ+ rights, the film was banned at first by censors in the state of Punjab. However, after appeals from figures across the country, including Malala Yousafzai, a recut version of the film was finally released in Pakistan.
Despite this turn of events, the film is profoundly Pakistani. The only definitively queer character is Biba, a ‘khawaja sira’, a term translated variously as ‘transgender’, ‘intersex’, or ‘third gender’. By centring a character from a community whose identity resists English definition, Sadiq presents an imaginative reality entirely divorced from Western constructions of gender, resisting the common claim that queer identities are outside impositions. Biba’s work as a ‘mujra’ dancer, a lasting vestige of Mughal courtly culture, loads the character with subcontinental ideals of femininity.
A sort of tragi-comedy, Joyland intersperses wry commentary on Desi family values and discrimination with moments of pure joy, and not-so-pure humour. Along the string of powerful, yet pearlescent scenes, come moments of unrestrained sadness: the rebuking of an old woman in search of new love, the emasculation of Haider as he fails to complete ‘qurbani’ (ritual sacrifice) on Bakr Eid, and the jealous yearning of Nucchi to, at last, bear a son.
The final shot sees the camera panning outwards from Haider’s still body as he wades in the waters of Karachi. Haider has escaped the inland chaos of Lahore and finds himself fulfilling a dream deferred: to see the sea. By the time the credits roll, he is almost invisible, for Joyland far outflanks him, and Mumtaz, and Biba for that matter.
Omnipresent and consistent is only the veil of patriarchy which obscures the genuine expression of each character – like the shrouded figure of Haider in the opening scene, like the loose-cut salwaar behind which Mumtaz hides, like the cardboard cut-out of Biba (in the film’s poster) which is precariously draped.
In Joyland, queerness becomes banal, and patriarchy is revealed to be futile. It is a must-watch.
‘This is a song about my horrible, horrible taste in men!’ Maisie Peters exclaims before launching into a thumping performance of Not Another Rockstar. Yet Peters’ show is about so much more than that. The Good Witch, embarking upon her first headlining tour, has brewed up a concoction of heartbreak and hope, insecurity and exuberance – infinitely earnest and unapologetically blonde, Peters has the audience under her spell. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves – let’s start at the beginning.
Peters began her career in 2016 aged 15, gaining traction in indie-pop circles before being signed to Atlantic Records in 2018 and subsequently releasing two EPs, as well as providing the soundtrack to the Apple TV original series Trying. In 2021, Peters left the label and signed with Ed Sheeran’s Gingerbread Man Records, releasing her first full-length album You Signed Up for This and joining Sheeran’s worldwide tour as an opening act. As someone who watched her very first YouTube videos in 2017 – fresh-faced and sub-a hundred likes – Peters’ success feels oddly near-and-dear. Her songs have been my soundtrack to new love and heartbreak, late-night singalongs and lazy summer days – so when she announced a tour date in Oxford, I pounced.
And – very unfortunately – failed to get tickets (despite increasingly frantic Ticketmaster antics during a lecture). Cherwell was my saviour and my lifeline – I was able to nab a guest spot to the concert in exchange for canvassing fans queueing to enter the venue. The line wound twice around the O2, with a palpable air of excitement (and a considerable amount of blonde box dye). The most common answer to asking fans what song they were most excited for was – unsurprisingly – Blonde, with a smattering of Psycho, Cate’s Brother, and the occasional deep-cut favourites Elvis Song and Glowing Review. Walking into the packed venue, I wasn’t sure who the opening act would be – only to find out (through increasingly anticipatory mutters in the crowd) that it was Cate Canning. Maisie Peters’ best friend, wrote-Cate’s-Brother-after-her-brother Cate Canning. Her appearance was greeted by an exuberant crowd, and when Peters finally appeared – confident, platinum blonde, wielding an acoustic guitar – the crowd went psycho (see what I did there?)
The set started off with Body Better, which Peters describes as ‘one of the most honest songs (she’s) ever released, and definitely the most personal.’ Despite it being a recently released single (one of what Peters has nicknamed the ‘Trauma Trio’), the audience chanted along to every word. Her introspective lyricism about ‘the ugly things you think to yourself in the aftermath (of a breakup)’ is juxtaposed by Peters’ signature brand of upbeat, infinitely catchy dance-pop, driven by a thumping bassline and punchy synths. Peters then effortlessly transitions into I’m Trying (Not Friends), a fast-paced, lyrically dynamic song about not being able to stay friends with an ex. The crowd (including me, of course) screams along to the chorus: ‘well I might be bitter and twisted and broken and petty and lying/but at least I’m trying.’ Peters commands the stage, larger than life (and her 5’2 frame) – at least she’s trying, and I can categorically state that she’s succeeded.
Her selection of songs included most of You Signed Up for This. Elvis Song, introduced by Peters as ‘a song I don’t perform often’, but included on the setlist as a ‘love song – and final goodbye – to You Signed Up for This’, garnered a particularly enthusiastic response. The lines ‘you were always on my mind/I was yours and you were mine’ felt particularly poignant in light of the fact that Peters wrote her upcoming album The Good Witch as catharsis for a failed relationship. Throughout the set, Peters’ vocals danced effortlessly between buoyant and uniquely vulnerable, cutting through the introspection of Brooklyn and Villain as well as the made-for-radio Psycho. Canning made a surprise appearance for a joint rendition of Cate’s Brother (albeit with modified lyrics – I’m not sure Cate feels quite the same way about her brother). The audience, whilst initially taken aback by the changed lyrics, recovered quickly, and chanted along to the fan favourite – Peters’ chemistry with Canning, owed to a decade-long friendship and (in her words) ‘separation anxiety’, is clear to see.
Showcasing her signature emotional honesty (and how similar she is to her listening demographic), Peters included a mashup of her most personal songs in the middle of the set, consisting of Glowing Review, Volcano, Good Enough, Favourite Ex, and a cover of Taylor Swift’s Dear John. Her performance felt like an interlude – a final goodbye to acoustic covers on YouTube and indie-pop laments, and a hello to an era that she describes as ‘much more sonically varied than anything I’ve done before.’
True to that promise, Peters follows the medley with Not Another Rockstar, a driving, pop-punk track. She emerges from smoke machines and spotlights with a cocksure strut and supreme ease, snarling along to ‘the law pulls up and you won’t get in the car/and I’m like, “oh, goddamn, not another rockstar”’. The high-energy track is infused with quick-witted vocals and an unapologetic liberation from players and narcissists – the rose-tinted glasses are unequivocally and undeniably off for good. The red flags are revealed for exactly what they are. Themes of self-love and self-respect are central to her closing tracks, Lost the Breakup and Blonde – the realisation that ‘oh shit, you lost the breakup’ and ‘remember how you screwed up when I was a brunette/I don’t think you knew just what you done’ is evident and screamed along to by the crowd.
Peters has emerged from the shadows of ‘Ed Sheeran’s opening act’ to become a fully-fledged pop star in her own right. It takes a powerful vulnerability – and a unique talent – to straddle the boundaries between teenage heartbreak and personal growth. These themes are frequently denigrated by the disdainful, ‘ugh-more-of-that-girly-girl-shit’ factions of the music scene. Especially with her upcoming release of The Good Witch, Peters is so much more than that. A talented lyrical storyteller with a knack for writing undeniable earworms, Peters’ repertoire is jam-packed with arena ready singalongs. Wickedly witty, rip-roaring pop-punk and heart-rendingly sensitive ballads alike, Peters has undeniably come into her own. With the crowd singing along (and, undoubtedly, relating to) every one of her lyrics, her show was a triumphant success, and (I imagine) both therapeutic and exhilarating for Peters herself.
‘You asked what I tell my friends/said “it’s a glowing review”’ – Peters has certainly been prophetic. Next on my list – to fuck your life up as a blonde.
Television has become an endless stream of reality TV, drama and sport. These categories make up the top ten television programmes viewed in 2019, according to the Broadcasters Audience Research Board. There is now a dwindling array of documentaries, particularly history documentaries. Whilst there are still a few historians (some of whom are our tutors) on our screens, the number of historical documentaries on TV has dropped to just a third of its 2007 figure, according to research by the Content Club.
Why does this matter? Have consumers simply lost interest in history documentaries?
The importance of having history documentaries on our television screens is manifold: they promote the advancement of knowledge, increase equality and progression to higher education, spread public awareness in the preservation of our heritage, and are funders of archaeology in the UK. Without history documentaries, we are on the precipice of losing these benefits.
The Channel 4 series Time Team ran for 20 years and was one of the UK’s largest independent funders of archaeology. Such was Time Team’s importance that its presenter, Tony Robinson, in a Channel 4 interview, stated that the archaeologists involved with the programme had published more papers on the Time Team excavations than all British university archaeology departments over the same period. The BBC’s television documentary series, ‘Meet The Ancestors’, which ran between 1998-2004, even had a dedicated archaeology department which funded, or partially funded, digs involved in the series. Since government funding for university archaeology departments has been cut by 50% in 2021 as part of their prioritised teaching strategy, there is an even greater need for TV companies to fund and promote archaeological activities.
These documentaries also form a key role in promoting public awareness and the preservation of heritage sites. This was most keenly seen in the case of Stonehenge. Numerous TV documentaries have recorded and documented this well-loved UNESCO World Heritage Site. When plans to build a four-lane road tunnel close to the site were discovered, it was public outrage and organising that prevented the plans from going ahead. If allowed to go ahead, it would have caused irreversible damage to the sensitive archaeological area surrounding the site, which is rich in Neolithic and Bronze Age history.
Image Credit: Monte Bernorio Institute of Ancient Studies of the Cantabric
The educational impact of the decline of the history documentary
The phasing out of history documentaries has a serious effect on education and amounts to a declaration of war on equality and diversity.
While we all know the importance of the outreach work Oxford conducts to make the City of Dreaming Spires accessible, enthusiasm for pursuing higher education in history and a passion for it, and reaching diverse communities, is being phased out by the lack of documentaries on television. History documentaries provide a wealth of knowledge for the viewer into all different types of history, be it classical antiquity, medieval Britain or global history. They allow children from a range of socio-economic backgrounds to learn in the absence of books and foster a passion for history, opening paths to further education and University.
When I contacted the art historian, author, and TV presenter (as well as Oxford tutor) Dr Janina Ramirez, she noted the importance of documentaries in educating and inspiring a love of history, “It is essential that factual television continues to be commissioned, since for many it is the place where people find a passion for history they never knew they had. Television has a duty to educate, inform, and entertain.”
It is the most vulnerable in society that will suffer from a lack of access to good quality educational documentaries. Indeed, 20% of the UK population is functionally illiterate, meaning that they have poor literacy skills and find it difficult to read information from unfamiliar sources or topics. However, almost 95% of UK households in 2019 owned a television licence. Thus, many functionally illiterate people educate themselves on history from television as opposed to books. These individuals, who may have struggled with school or have learning disabilities, are being stripped of the ability to learn independently about history without the need to access books.
Such television politics has stripped viewers who had very little access to history education in the first place, of the opportunity to learn more about history and explore that which has been left behind.
I decided to study Classical Archaeology and Ancient History because of the documentaries I watched as a child. I am not the only one: another CAAH student said that they were inspired to pick their subject by watching the serious history documentaries of David Starkey on the monarchy of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
The British military historian, novelist and broadcaster Saul David, when asked to comment, noted the increasing trend in the decline of documentaries on television and their educational importance, “When I started in broadcasting more than 20 years ago, Britain made the best history documentaries in the world. They provided a vital educational resource and made the subject accessible to all. Now, thanks to the demise of strands such as BBC’s Timewatch and Channel 4’s Secret History, quality programmes are few and far between; most TV history is underfunded, repetitive in subject and simplistic in tone.”
The current decline in history documentaries paired with the cost-of-living crisis will only exacerbate the issues outlined above. It will become harder for families to access history sites both locally, nationally and abroad. Indeed, currently, it can cost a family more than £60 to visit Stonehenge. Privately owned heritage sites can cost considerably more to visit. Holidays to archaeologically or historically significant sites have become impossible for many. It is now more than ever that documentaries must fill in the educational gaps which have widened into a gulf by the economic crisis.
Speaking with another second year History student at Oxford, they raised an important point, “Documentaries are an essential resource for historical education, specifically for visual and auditory learners. They can be vital in dispelling historical myths, some of which can be used to underline contemporary political ideologies (e.g., Holocaust denial).”
Image Credit: Sarah Jobling
The growth of history documentary subscription services
Out of this abyss, there are a number of innovative approaches to making history more accessible, namely through subscription services, such as Time Team Patreon, History Hit by Dan Snow and the Content Club. The Content Club was founded by ex-BBC documentary makers and historians, who are disheartened that much less money is given to the commissioning of history programs, which has led to a decline in quantity and quality. Their ethos is to fill this gap in television, and they aim to fund ten high-quality documentaries a year. This approach is radically different from the traditional funding model, where broadcasters, who are currently reluctant to put forward the funding for history television programmes, commission the documentaries.
The Content Club is a project that is crowd funded by membership and brings together fans, historians, and producers to collaborate on the documentaries that they make.I interviewed one of the founding members, the television producer and director Sarah Jobling. Jobling explained, “We want to give people the quality history programming we all used to make for the BBC”. Their first film ‘Rome’s Forgotten War’ was originally pitched to traditional broadcasters; although production companies were very excited about it, the broadcasters shut them down and “invariably what we were told is television is just not making Ancient History anymore, and that people aren’t interested… and we don’t believe that”. Sarah went on to say, “We know there is an appetite for history because of the popularity of history podcasts.”
Their first film project, ‘Rome’s Forgotten War,’ which will be filmed between April and December of this year, explores the Cantabrian War fought between Rome and Spain from 29-19 BC. This fierce war raged against Celtic tribes living in the Iberian Peninsula of Spain during the reign of the first ‘Emperor’ Augustus, and on the defeat of the tribes in battle, all of Spain came under Roman control. Augustus took part in this 10-year war directly, sending eight legions of soldiers and a fleet of ships into the battle. When he returned to Rome, the Senate commissioned the Ara Pacis in 13BC to commemorate his return. The idea for a project on the Cantabrian War was seized upon during the production of another history series of the type that is on mainstream television today, which had less depth and jumped from topic to topic. Sarah Jobling stated that “I immediately thought this deserves more than 5 minutes of the show”.
The archaeological excavations currently being undertaken to reconstruct the wars have so far revealed fascinating insights into an area which isn’t widely known about; “this was a story that needed to be told”. The discoveries made on one of the archaeological sites suggests that it has the largest collection of spent arrowheads in the Roman world ever discovered. These arrowheads lend to the idea of the intensity and brutality of the war, which are currently being reconstructed piece by piece. The site is frozen in history; it is a record of the lives of these people, each day that passed in the battle, each life that was lost and the final war they fought.
Arrowheads remain lodged in some of the remains of the walls. Sarah told me with such enthusiasm and passion that the stories of individual battles can be seen through this archaeological excavation. It is possible to see where the Romans camped and attempted their first approach, the direction of the artillery barrages and where they burst through gates, you can see down to the final moments of the battle where there was “hand to hand fighting in the streets of the Iron Age fort”. This detail beautifully exemplifies the importance of documentaries working on archaeological sites; these stories may have been discovered and pieced together by the archaeologists, but the events which took place 2,000 years ago have been brought to life in the hands of the TV producers. Saul David added that the “Content Club will reverse the trend [of poorer quality programmes], open the mysteries of TV production to the members, and give power back to the creatives. Sarah’s first film Rome’s Forgotten War will help return nuanced, ground-breaking history to our TV screens.”
At the very heart of documentaries lies the fact that it allows the viewer to feel involved and connected with history in a meaningful way without actually seeing the object, place or experiencing the events. It is most exciting that this new approach innovatively allows the viewer to become engaged in the production process for the history documentary, allowing student and amateur enthusiasts alike to sit in on production meetings, review scripts, and vote on production elements, along with hearing daily reports from the location.
Sarah Jobling stated, “We want it to operate as an ideas incubator; a really exciting place where students could get involved”. Not only can young people have a say in the content that reaches our screens, but they can help in its creation, giving insight into the filming industry and helping others pursue an interest in History.
These opportunities allow students and academics alike to gain experience and forge links into previously very insular career pathways; each part of the production process is laid open and can even be influenced by your own thoughts and views. As Sarah Jobling told me, “Opening up the production process gives students invaluable career insights […] acquire hard skill tips like interviewing and applied research skills from the best practitioners [and] get a head start on that first step into TV. For academics and postgrads looking to pitch ideas and forge a career path, it offers a clear understanding of what ideas producers are looking for and how to shape your research and present your work so TV producers will grasp its value quickly.”
The current state of historical television documentaries has deteriorated; it is harmful to equality and higher education, but there is a glimmer of hope in the form of streaming services. Hopefully, one day, with the rise in popularity of these streaming services, historical documentaries will once again grace our screens, and mainstream broadcasters will acknowledge their merit and demand.
