Sunday 13th July 2025
Blog Page 529

Violent Music – Acaster’s ‘Perfect Sound Whatever’

Kavya Deshpande
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Violent Music – Acaster’s ‘Perfect Sound Whatever’

Perfect Sound Whatever is comedian James Acaster’s part-memoir, part-encyclopaedic recount of the records that made 2016 the Greatest Year for Music of All Time, and how an obsession with them guided him out of the difficulties of 2017. 

One morning in 1958, Louise Bourgeois woke up and addressed a diary entry to herself. “How much violence do you have in you today?” she demanded, before going on to list the means by which she could find out. Did she feel like cooking or cleaning or repairing? Did she want to buy something? Could she discern a new interest that had not existed last week, or one that had and was now ready for discarding? “What,” she asked, “Makes today a new day?” 

One morning in 2017, I woke up with very little violence in me. I did nothing that day, or in fact for the rest of that week. It was only when the next week sank in the same way that I realised something was wrong. In some far-down recess of the brain, a pipe had burst. Damp was climbing. I had no choice but to move out and hope the situation sorted itself. 

I checked into a different mind, one where it felt good, even medicinal, to never go outside. I ate sharing-size bags of crisps and stared at vacuous YouTube videos until the nerves in my temples sizzled. I let myself do this because tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow I would find a new interest. When those tomorrows arrived, I remained in bed reading articles online about the interests of other people, better people, people whose enthusiasms led to activity. Painters, academics, musicians who sweated away short lives playing small clubs and succumbed to liver-failures in small flats. Even in these latter cases, I thought it was nice that they had, at the very least, left their beds every morning and returned to them only in the evening. I thought it would be nice if I tried that. Tomorrow, perhaps.  

I used to believe that once the violence leaves you, it never really comes back. There are bursts of activity, a few consecutive days of getting things done, but in the end the water always settles. The idea of having preoccupations the way you used to – not so much developing an interest in as giving your whole self to something, allowing it to smuggle you from B-side to footnote to forum until you emerge a cleverer, passionate, more alive person – becomes inconceivable. 

In Perfect Sound Whatever, James Acaster presents a counter-argument. Acaster, experimental stand-up, panel-show misanthrope and veteran cowbellist of Kettering’s underground music scene, began his 2017 in a similar absence of violence. Newly-split from both his girlfriend and agent, fresh vulnerabilities joined forces with ancient insecurities to wear him down. He used to leave his hotel room and explore the cities he performed in. He used to obsess over music. He used to play the cowbell in Kettering’s finest amateur outfit. Now, he had lost the ability to engage with anything. 

Unsure of how to exit this new state of mind, Acaster devised a project that would help relieve his symptoms. He had, for some months, nursed a suspicion that 2016 had been the greatest year for music of all time, and now he was going to attend to it. He wanted to simulate the sensation of discovering a record, falling in love with it, and folding it into your life until fragments of lyric or tune became a part of your emotional topography. 

This was a feeling Acaster needed, but was not willing to wait to chance upon. He was going to siphon it from as many albums made in the year 2016 as he could physically listen to. He chased it to the ends of the internet, finding it in the bilge water of music-sharing websites, in soundtracks to imaginary films and debuts by kids with cheap microphones and empty garages. He designed it himself, releasing a compilation of grunge covers of short-lived bands from his hometown – often old friends – that he loved as a teenager.  Somewhere along the way, his project lost its artificial quality. Acaster purchased over 500 records from 2016, and from the way he writes about them, it isn’t hard to believe that he gained something from every last one. 

I remember reading articles in which those other, better people described their interests, and feeling the impassable distance between me and them. At the time, I leant on this material as a reminder that there was still another world, an absorbing, textured world, that I could check back into when I felt ready. 

What I wish I had at the time, however, was Perfect Sound Whatever. It is an admission and exploration of a pathology that those afflicted often find too precise to address. It is also a dispatch from the other side of this feeling. A war story. With quiet humour and relentless sincerity, Acaster proves that violence lost can always be wrested back.

What Light Through Yonder Theatre Breaks?

Emily Capon
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What Light Through Yonder Theatre Breaks?

This week, we saw the death of theatre director Terry Hands, acclaimed for his founding of the Everyman in Liverpool among various other theatrical, notably Shakespearean, endeavours. This news came within hours of the RSC’s announcement of their winter season of Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses plays, nearly forty years after Hands’ production of the Henry VI trilogy as artistic director of the RSC supplanted it firmly back into the public psyche.

Hands’ style of directing was distinctive, and often classic. His productions had a certain energetic hum that surrounded them, and in his more than 25 years as Director Emeritus and Artistic Director of the RSC, it became difficult to disassociate his productions from his latent directorial presence. He came to the RSC with a track-record of success, having founded the Everyman after graduating from RADA; he continued to wield his benevolent hands (pun not intended) over the theatre world when, after leaving the RSC, he saved Wales’ Theatr Clwyd from closure. His styles soon became trademark, as he made his way through Europe’s theatre circles. He had an almost unparalleled ability to pick out and persuading talent to his ends, mentoring the likes of Anthony Sher, Deborah Warner and Adrian Noble.

One of the most recognisable parts of his directorial style, though, is his idiosyncratic use of light, casting himself as lighting director in a number of productions. Hands made us light-sensitive as an audience; what were the possibilities of light in Shakespeare, and how could they enhance a performance? He seems to have tapped into useful directorial opportunities, noticing and exploiting the infinite variety of light’s possibility in Shakespeare’s plays.

Light, for anyone who has pored over an Arden Shakespeare, traipsing through theme after theme, is an image of notable significance. Romeo famously asks Juliet: ‘But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?’; if the window is the east, and Juliet really is the sun, how can a director make her so? The 2006 RSC production, directed by Nancy Meckler, has Juliet perched not on a balcony but on a precarious metal scaffold. The light that bathes her face is not warm sunlight but the harsh whiteness of stage lights, as we are denied access to the fallacy in which the two lovers find themselves in. To Romeo, his paramour has the soft warmth of the sun, but to us, she looks harsh and distant, lit with a clinical pale glow. In the 2010 RSC production, Juliet is offstage when Romeo’s dramatic love exposition begins; the visions of grandeur in Romeo’s mind can be indulged by the director, or gently mocked by way of deliberate omission.

The relative scarcity of specific stage direction or set instruction makes a Shakespeare play a useful tabula rasa upon which a director can build an effective, stylistically distinctive production. However, there are some specific light requirements that are vital to the narrative while being difficult for a director to work with. A distinction between night and day is a recurring feature, a technique that would have been especially difficult in the open-air amphitheatre styles of some Elizabethan theatres. The script for our case study, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, includes the time markers of morning, twilight, noon, twilight, night and dawn. It is, obviously, at the director’s discretion whether they choose to play to these distinctions, or whether they will allow the play to exist in its own isolated timelessness. Time disorientation works well for the two lovers’ tragic story; a refusal to acknowledge the passage of time gives the story a cruelly ironic sense of having time to spare, when in reality the events take place over only four days. If the director chooses to note these fluctuations in light, the play becomes more urgent, more visceral and more real.

There are over thirty stage directions in Shakespeare’s oeuvre calling for lights to be carried on-stage. Three kinds of lights are specified: tapers, torches and lanterns. Torches are the most common by far, and undoubtedly the easiest for an actor to use effectively on stage. However, the Elizabethan nomenclature of specific lights was inconsistent, so relative free-reign, even then, was given to matters of lighting for the productions. It is unreasonable to presume that a modern director will feel constricted to the confines of Shakespeare’s own light specifications, but some performance spaces necessitate a modicum of orthodoxy. The Globe’s primary light source is sunlight, making the only significant differentiation in light that between London’s night and day. Even the indoor Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, though artificially lit with candles, is illuminated uniformly throughout entire performances.  In such spaces, lights carried on and off stage were not a requirement, but a superfluity to the space: they were an exercise in aesthetics, rather than function.

Aside from the time markers mentioned previously, the use of hand-held lights in the plays are used traditionally to indicate dark, shadowy loci, where the presence of light indicates a lack it, as well as ceremony and metaphor. The extinguishing of these indicates a plummet into total darkness, in which Cassio can be ambushed and Lear can be left isolate on the heath. As Lear’s Fool says: ‘so out went the candle and we were left darkling’. The audience is trusted to suspend disbelief as we plunge, with the characters, into metaphorical darkness.

How, then, has Hands’ legacy of light been an influential force on the modern Shakespeare scene? The 2014 Park Avenue Theatre, New York, staged a production of ‘Macbeth’ that surpassed audience expectations not only of light but also of staging. The play’s cavernous space was transformed into a barren heath, complete with open flame torches lighting the audience’s way towards the steep, stadium seating. Strange and otherworldly shadows were cast on the faces of the (floating!) witches. The mass of candles at the end of the traverse stage that glowed hot in Lady Macbeth’s fieriest moments stood cold and dark when, hands stained with blood, she begs: ‘Oh light! Please take me! I deserve to die! / Now take me light! Now cover my darkness!’. Though elements of this production crumble under accusations of ‘style over substance’, it is exemplary in its manipulation of, or abject disregard for, Shakespeare’s original plans for light in his plays.

Nonconformist lighting techniques are not specific to tragedy; Shakespeare’s already farcical, unrealistic comedic scenarios can be made more so with lighting that removes us entirely from reality. The recent production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at London’s Bridge Theatre explores the dark sexuality that runs throughout the play, by keeping the in-the-round performance space mostly dark and shadowy, save select spots of bright lightness. In a play usually interpreted with the summer-gaze of cloudless days and soft heat, the Bridge’s chiaroscuro is a refreshing palate cleanser for some of its more sanguine adaptations. Sequinned and salacious, the play’s purple hue in the final scene gives it permission to revel in its unabashed campness, dragging the audience literally skipping into its midsummer fever dream.

One wonders whether Shakespeare’s verse benefits from these techniques; should we give in to purists, and have our open-air theatres lit exclusively by the sun and the odd taper? Some productions, like Park Avenue’s, undoubtedly suffer for stylistic diversity, sacrificing subtleties of language, style and blocking to make room for the enormity of these effects.  However, in order to guarantee our public appreciation for these plays for years to come, we have a duty to embrace and support attempts at stylistic innovation, rather than dismissing them as silly or superfluous. Done well, effects such as lighting can enhance audience enjoyment, and Terry Hands’ productions exemplified this. He used never-before-seen lighting techniques with consistent success, demonstrating how, even though Shakespeare doesn’t need to be modernised to the 21st century, we’d be happy to have him.

Cherpse! Tara and Ben

Cherwell Life
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Cherpse! Tara and Ben

Tara, New College, Biomed, 1st year

We met by the Ashmolean (very creepy at night) and went to the pub – we quickly established that we had lots of mutual friends to the point that we’d been in the same room multiple times before but never met. We then realised we had been to the same nursery and reminisced about simpler times before trying to figure out what on our profiles meant we were matched by the cupids, quickly realising it was a mutual love of football. Unfortunately he’s an Arsenal supporter so none of his opinions were valid. (Although as a Man U fan it was gratifying to talk to someone whose team was still doing worse than mine!) 

First impressions?
Felt like I recognised him from somewhere – turns out I did!

Did it meet up to your expectations?
Given that I had no idea what to expect, I’m going to say yes.

What was the highlight?
Definitely discussing that time we watched butterflies in the nursery garden when we were four.

What was the most embarrassing moment?
I spilled my G&T all over my arm at the start but I’m not sure if he noticed.

Describe the date in three words:
Very small world.

Is a second date on the cards?
I saw him later in the Bridge smoking area, so depends how you define a date I guess?

Ben, Oriel, PPE, 1st year

We met on the steps of the Ashmolean at 7.30. We were unsure where to go but having worked that she had eaten and I hadn’t. We ended up in Chequers for a drink and some food having wandered down Cornmarket Street. We first tried to work out why we had been matched up although football was the only thing that we could work out was on both of our forms. Once the conversation got going we worked out that we had quite a lot of mutual friends as we both came from London. Having realised this we eventually worked out that we used to live only a few streets away and had gone to the same nursery school. We spent most of the time discussing mutual friends and catching up on their lives. It was very interesting and a pleasant evening but I don’t think either of us really felt a spark and we finished our drinks and went our separate ways.

First impressions?
She seemed quite nice and easy to talk to.

Did it meet up to your expectations?
I really had no idea what to expect going on. I was slightly worried the other person might be very strange or the date would be awkward so it definitely went better than that. Other than that though I didn’t have any strong expectations and was just curious what would happen.

What was the highlight?
Working out that we had been in the same nursery school class of 10 or 15 kids but didn’t remember each other.

What was the most embarrassing moment?
Working out that we had been in the same nursery school class of 10 or 15 kids but didn’t remember each other.

Describe the date in three words:
Interesting, reminiscing, pleasant.

Is a second date on the cards?
No.

The Challenge of Maintaining a Legacy

Elara Oakes
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The Challenge of Maintaining a Legacy

January 2020 has brought with it the deaths of both Christopher Tolkien, son of J. R. R. Tolkien, and Stephen Joyce, grandson of James Joyce. The coincidence of their deaths calls to attention their remarkably different ways of handling the literary legacies left to them. The role of a literary executor is an unusual one, and for Tolkien and Joyce it became a full-time job. It’s hard to know whether it would feel like a blessing or a curse to have your career determined by the responsibility of caring for your father or grandfather’s reputation. For Tolkien Jr, the weight of this responsibility could be felt literally in the form of the 70 boxes of papers left to him after his father’s death.

Managing a literary estate involves maintaining copyrights and dealing with unpublished work, letters and diaries according to the deceased author’s wishes. The decisions made by literary executors can easily become a source of controversy and outrage among fans and academics, as was the case – in very different ways – for Christopher Tolkien and James Joyce. 

Christopher Tolkien was the editor of his father’s posthumously published works, including The Silmarillion in 1977, a colossal work describing the history and mythology of Middle Earth. However, many lovers of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were suspicious about how much of the work was truly J. R. R. Tolkien’s. Christopher dispelled these worries with The History of Middle-Earth, a 12-volume series published between 1983 and 1996, revealing the source material for The Silmarillion including original drafts, fragments, notes and other unpublished material. It also showed that practically everything Christopher Tolkien had published came directly from his father. In the statement released by the Tolkien Society on the 16th January confirming Christopher Tolkien’s death, Tolkien scholar Dr Dimitra Fimi said ‘He revealed his father’s grand vision of a rich and complex mythology. He gave us a window into Tolkien’s creative process, and he provided scholarly commentary that enriched our understanding of Middle-earth.’ Christopher Tolkien traded in his job as a lecturer in Old and Middle English at Oxford to become the first and greatest scholar of his father’s work and was still publishing in 2018 at the age of 93. 

It’s hard to imagine someone better qualified for the job than the man whose childhood bedtime stories formed the imaginative world of Middle Earth, and who went on to become its cartographer, drawing many of the original maps for his father’s The Lord of the Rings. This is also a reminder of how personal the work can be, and it’s not surprising that family members are often extremely protective of the author’s legacy. 

This is the case with Stephen Joyce, who was well-known for keeping strict control over his grandfather James Joyce’s legacy. In 2006 he told The New Yorker’s D. T. Max that he was ‘protecting and preserving the purity’ of his grandfather’s work and ‘what remains of the much abused privacy of the Joyce family.’ His opinions on academics couldn’t be further from those of the late Christopher Tolkien. He saw academics as ‘people who want to brand this great work with their mark. I don’t accept that.’ He called them ‘rats and lice – they should be exterminated!’ He consistently refused scholars the right to quote from Joyce’s works or reproduce manuscript pages. 

Stephen’s war against Joyce critics included appearing at academic conferences, sometimes unexpectedly, and declaiming the irrelevance of their work. He destroyed family members’ letters and threatened to destroy James Joyce’s letters. He often claimed ‘I am a Joyce, not a Joycean’ and insisted on being addressed by his full name, Stephen James Joyce, as a reminder that he, not the academics he so despised, was the authority on James Joyce. Stephen’s opposition to the way his grandfather’s reputation was handled went beyond his hostility towards Joyce scholars. Every year on the 16th of June ‘Bloomsday’ is celebrated, commemorating the day on which the events in Ulysses occur. This is marked by festivals in many cities around the world and usually involves public readings. However, in 2004 Stephen Joyce threatened the Irish government with a lawsuit to prevent public readings. In order for the celebrations to go ahead, the Irish Parliament had to create an emergency legislation called the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Act 2004, modifying the country’s copyright law.

Stephen’s opposition to the celebrations may have had something to do with his belief that Leopold Bloom was not the main character of Ulysses: he claimed the 16th of June should be called ‘Ulysses Day’ and questioned why scholars write so much about Bloom rather than Stephen Dedalus. It’s immediately clear why he may feel a closer affinity to Stephen. It can be seen in the nostalgia of his claim that ‘Stephen Dedalus is, in a very important sense, Nonno’s character.’ His affectionate Italian name for his grandfather reveals how personal the matter of James Joyce’s legacy is for him. It also hints at the rejection of Ireland that comes along with this. He was resentful of what he called Ireland’s ‘shitty treatment’ of his grandparents and never forgot the rejection his family felt when the Irish government did not allow Joyce to be buried in his country of origin. It’s understandable that Stephen did not like Ireland claiming his Nonno as their own. 

This brings to light the problem of privacy in matters of an author’s legacy. While Joyce himself occasionally made fun of scholars, he never felt the same animosity his grandson did. He even said of Ulysses, ‘I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.’ Some may view Stephen’s overprotectiveness as an abuse of power, but it’s hard to blame him when his relationship to his grandfather’s work was tied up with feelings of loyalty and love for his family. 

Changes in copyright law and the dwindling distinction between public and private mean the literary landscape looks very different now than it did for Tolkien and Joyce. Descendants of writers who never had to worry about the internet and an increasingly commercialised publishing industry are facing the challenges they pose. Is it best to preserve the author’s privacy or put their diaries online for all to access? Is this a betrayal or a public service?

The same questions were raised in 2015 with the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set A Watchman. An early draft which Harper Lee never intended to publish was being promoted as a sequel to her only novel To Kill A Mockingbird. The release of the book contradicted the ageing Harper Lee’s statements that she would never release another novel and suspiciously followed the death of her sister who acted as her literary executor. Before Stephen became the executor of Joyce’s estate, other family members published Joyce’s early draft, Stephen Hero, and a series of notes as a poem called Giacomo Joyce. There’s often a sense of guilt surrounding these overpublicised but underdeveloped early drafts and they’re often mysteriously described as ‘literary events,’ putting the emphasis on the publication rather than the content. Every review carefully avoids evaluating the writing and describes the characters, trying to keep up the pretence that the posthumously published draft is a sequel. They also avoid describing the uncomfortable sensation that you are reading something unfinished or something that violates the illusion the author tried to create in their lifetime.

The start of this year saw the death of a man who managed to continue the illusion of the world his father created. It also saw the death of a man who spent his life struggling to find ways to possess and protect the literary work of his grandfather. With the end of their lives comes the question of whether we should consider posthumously published work within the corpus of the original author at all. Although originally written by the elder Tolkien and Joyce, the influence of Christopher Tolkien and Stephen Joyce will be felt by all who read the works. 

SATIRE: Trump and I

Jack Womack
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SATIRE: Trump and I

I’ve been ill this week. Not the glamorous kind of ill, just a boring low-level kind of tonsillitis. The smallest sip of water is like a mouthful of rusty razorblades, but despite hamming it up for the GP, it is apparently ‘quite a mild case’, which doesn’t really give me a lot to work with.

Normally, I would fully embrace this kind of illness. Any opportunity to channel the sickly Victorian child within me is a welcome one, especially when it’s in order to maximise the attention and sympathies of other people. But with essentially just a ‘sore throat’, I’m aware this kind of performance risks appearing a little pathetic.

So instead, during the early stages of my throat misfortunes, I simply pretended not to notice it. Despite the pain getting worse, I continued going out and seeing people, my thinking being: if I was unable to be ill in an exciting way, then no illness for me!

Sadly, the laws of biomedicine had other plans, and eventually I was forced to admit defeat and see a doctor. A few days later however, a video on Twitter made me aware that I had an unfortunate ally when it came to my misguided ‘can-do’ attitude.

In a video clip played by Democrat Adam Schiff on the first day of the House of Representatives hearings for his impeachment, Trump tells an audience, “Then I have an Article II [of the Constitution] where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

Though it pains me to admit it, during my week of illness I shared this misguided and deluded faith in my own capabilities. I truly believed I could do whatever I wanted and somehow cheat the bacteria festering within me. This messiah complex is something I was planning to work on anyway, but the resonances of Trump means I might start this process earlier than first planned.

A quick internet search reveals that Trump’s bragging of his executive power – exhibited by Schiff as evidence for the likelihood of Trump’s guilt – is an almost exact word for word replica of something else the President said, although in a very different context.

Trump’s longstanding involvement in American wrestling is well known, but his relationship with WWE owner Vince McMahon has had its rocky patches. After a business deal in 2009 which McMahon perceived to be particularly unfair, Trump told him, “I can do whatever the hell I want.”

The signs were there. We can’t say we weren’t warned. Wrestling and arrogance have always been key ingredients in the Trump personality soup, and both were on show in this big week for the President. His unsurprising acquittal by a Republican-controlled Senate came after his third State of the Union address.

            For Democrat Tim Ryan, the address was evidence that Trump’s WWE days are not fully behind him. He tweeted, ‘I just walked out of the #StateOfTheUnion. I’ve had enough. It’s like watching professional wrestling. It’s all fake.’

Demonstrating the new rule that politicians are better at satire than real satirists, Ryan hit the nail on the head. Media commentators always point to Trump’s background in business, his dishonesty and tendency to rip off his investors, as the strongest indicator of what kind of President he would turn out to be.

But this whole time, these commentators have been looking in the wrong direction. WWE has always been Trump’s spiritual home, a world in which ‘fake’ and ‘real’ have a fluid relationship with each other. Throw in the added similarity of a long history of sexual harassment, and Trump and WWE’s relationship also begins to look a little fluid.

            A document released in 2019 revealed a long history of sexual misconduct allegations against WWE, a revelation about as surprising as my tonsillitis diagnosis. When you throw together arena entertainment, corporate money, and spandex, it’s hardly surprising that a smattering of legal cases is the end result.

            Speaking of sexual harassment charges, Trump himself has a few of those on the go, so many, in fact, that it’s even proving a struggle to deal with them one by one. The New York Post reported this week that Trump wants New York journalist E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against him put on hold while he appeals former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos’ case against him. Court documents revealed that Trump’s lawyers argued the cases would also be a “distraction” for the public, as well as a distraction on Trump’s time.

I think Trump becomes one of the first examples of a man who tries to avoid their legal case for bad behaviour towards women, by arranging for a similar case to take place first. As a strategy, it’s hard to see the sense of it, but to quote the great man himself, ‘…when you’re a star… you can do anything.’ As I got progressively more ill this week, he might as well have been reading my feverish, scattered brain, high on my own delusions of power. Time for the therapy chair.

Hi, I’m an Oxford student and I have chronic indecision

Katya Alban
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Hi, I’m an Oxford student and I have chronic indecision

Everyone in Oxford seems to be an overachiever, skipping from committee to niche sports team with apparent ease. How can we deal with the reality of feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of trying to enrich our essay-ridden lives?

Relative to the breadth of problems facing Oxford students today, indecision seems rather petty. What is so terrible about having a multitude of opportunities thrown at you left, right and centre? We are certainly fortunate that the kind of problems we are facing tend to be along the lines of which editorial position to apply for, whether or not we have time next term to take on the role of JCR president alongside rowing with the blues team, or if we are willing to prioritise networking at Spirited Discussions over watching the next episode of The Apprentice on Wednesday evenings.

Having all of these as options is wonderful, granted. But therein lies the problem. They are all too wonderful to choose from or narrow down.

Does anyone else remember striding through the freshers fair, notebook and timetable at the ready, noting down every possible society of interest (there were many), until you finally get to the dominos stall at the end and just want to sit there for a few hours and let your body and mind unwind to the taste of pizza? All the enthusiastic people at their stalls seem so convinced that their society is the best; that it provides the friendliest community, the best experience to put on your CV or, in the cases of sport, that it guarantees an enjoyable form of exercise. How is one supposed to prioritise these various considerations?

I for one remember genuinely considering joining the marine reserves, then swiftly reconsidering after a very enjoyable rock climbing session which I then wanted to commit to, all the while knowing I had already sworn allegiance to powerlifting, chapel choir, my role as treasurer on the English society and that other minor occupation: my English and German degree. I was also well aware that I would need to leave a few gaps in my timetable for one-off events, various applications and for downtime or clubbing (usually the former.) It always seemed to me that I could either be healthy and productive, academic and cultured or musical and refined, but none of these all at once.

And, to an extent, that was a fair conclusion on my part. As much as we would all like to be superhumans – congratulations to those of you who are, I would love to hear how you manage it – the reality is that it is unhelpful to set up impossible expectations for ourselves.

What has helped me to establish a more productive mindset is to get rid of these binaries, since ultimately there is no objective way of classifying, qualifying and rating any of our interests, or the effect they have on us. In other words, I stopped thinking about what would make me the most multi-talented version of myself and started to prioritise activities that I knew I would enjoy and that would offer me a refreshing change from academic life. For instance, the reason why I do powerlifting is because I love how immersed I have to be in the moment in order to lift safely and with good form; I can’t be worrying about my essay deadlines or how long Thomas is going to last in BBC’s The Apprentice, which unfortunately did become a constant concern.

Moreover, while being dependent on what can be cooked in a cramped student kitchen, a floor or house dinner party has the benefits of being nourishing, wholesome, and rejuvenating after a week of rushing around trying to meet deadlines. I now regard such events as important commitments in and of themselves, and I would recommend them to anyone who is feeling the effects of a lengthy and arduous term. Last term, I occupied my time by writing a supermarket review which, conveniently, could come in handy in any future wholesome cooking sessions. Most of all, it’s these wholesome domestic activities which I would advise students to prioritise in the middle of Oxford’s hectic and high-pressure environment.

From Kampala With Love

Alec Holt
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From Kampala With Love

At its Southern extremities, the River Nile flows from Lake Victoria into the plains of Uganda as the Victoria Nile. The city of Jinja and its suburban extension, Njeru, sit on opposite banks of the nascent Victoria Nile as it begins its arterial pilgrimage to the Mediterranean. This stretch of the river is home to the Kakira Sugar Works, one of the largest in Eastern Africa, the headquarters of Nile Breweries Limited, who account for over half of the Ugandan beer market, and, every September, to quite possibly the most exciting underground music festival in the world.

For the past five years, Ugandan-based label Nyege Nyege Tapes have drawn together the best of East Africa’s up-and-coming musical talent, much of it from their own roster, with exciting names from as far as the UK, China, and Japan for a celebration of togetherness, freedom, and, as they put it, “non-stop party”. That might not be the most original of mission statements, but a spirit of independence and an immaculate ear have led Nyege Nyege Festival to quickly establish itself as one of the most essential of its kind.

Regularly gracing the bill are label success stories like Otim Alpha, whose dizzyingly glitched-out takes on the traditional wedding music of the Acholi people have led to European shows in Berlin and Barcelona, and the blistering punk-spattered bpm of Duke, flagbearer of an unforgiving Dar Es Salaam Singeli scene which has increasingly started to turn heads around the globe. Yet none quite embody Nyege Nyege’s collaborative international ethos, their juncture of heritage and bleeding edge, and their veneration of the live experience as aptly as Ugandan-British assemble Nihiloxica.

A collective venture, UK artists Spooky-J and pq first travelled to Uganda’s capital city, Kampala, in 2017 ahead of the year’s iteration of the festival. There they married their impeccable techno chops with the driving propulsion of traditional Bugandan drum circles as played by the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble, a troupe which “provides an outlet for the youth of Kampala, teaching spiritual, musical and tailoring practices to underprivileged communities around the city”. The yield is a match dredged up from the substrata of a stygian tar pit, slicked, muscular, and utterly gripping.

Nihiloxica’s self-titled debut EP, one of two to date, comes fully formed and unshrinkingly assured of itself from the opening deliberate drumbeats of ‘Nilo Chug’. Cymbals rattle. In the background, saw-like swells mount to a pitch and dissipate. When the song eventually ruptures into the complete force of its drum circle thump, swaying and intoxicating and martial, the potency of the fusion becomes fully apparent. The circle reaches new degrees of frenzy in ‘Choir Chops’’s give-and-take style duet of drums and tech, one assuming virtuoso priority before yielding to the other. The blow-by-blow alternation recalls a WWE tag team, but there’s nothing fake here. Yet it’s still when the two work in tandem that we have Nihiloxica at their turbulently brilliant best: of that ‘Endongo’’s delirious climax leaves us in no doubt. ‘Kadodi’ makes for a breathless ending, 5 relentless minutes of increasingly rabid drums exhibiting the full capabilities of the unaccompanied Nilotika Cultural Ensemble before we’re jolted out of the feverish darkness by the only human voice on the album: “Welcome back from the zone,” a man growls, yet you can’t help but wish that you’d never left it.

2019’s follow-up Biiri saw them rein in some of the mania in favour of a more pronounced techno influence; ‘Diggi Dagga’ is more overtly Detroit-esque than anything else they’ve made, and closer ‘Ding Dong’ is lent a horror-tinged claustrophobia by its squealing electronic spikes. The interaction of influences now feels less like a thrilling clash than an indivisible compound, the product of a group becoming increasingly single-minded and of months spent honing their collective vision on the road.

Their back-catalogue is yet to produce any misses, but that Nihiloxica is at its core an endeavour geared towards the performance context is stressed by the blurb to their first EP, which promises “a project designed for mayhem in the live environment”. You don’t need to see them onstage to know that mayhem is exactly what this music precipitates: that they were hand-picked by Aphex Twin to support him at his Printworks set is as ringing an endorsement as could be bestowed upon any act. Everything about their sound is visceral in the literal sense of the word, all-resounding and with a gutsy primal brawn that feels incomplete without an accompanying pit of grappling bodies.

With rumours of a debut LP arriving early this year, you can bet they’ll be heading out on the road again soon; whether you catch them in London or on the banks of the Nile, Nihiloxica are most emphatically not to be missed.

Review: Present Laughter

Daniya Jawwad
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Review: Present Laughter

Present Laughter, a 1942 play by Noël Coward, recounts the days leading up to the departure of Gary Essendine, an actor, for his tour in Africa. Before he can leave, however, Gary finds himself caught in a very complex web of relationships, drawing in but not limited to his estranged wife, work associates and a string of admirers. Needless to say that this leads to a series of comical and ridiculous events.

When commenting on the actors themselves, each and every one was visibly rooted in their character and as a result, delivered very convincing performances. Gary (Octavia de Clare), a self pitying bon viveur, captivates the audience with her high spirited and energetic performance. Liz (Imogen Front) and Monica (Elise Busset) are the level headed, stabilising forces in Gary’s life, striking a healthy balance with the animated Gary on stage. Unknowing Henry (Ben Morris), panicky Morris (Abigail Howe) and the ‘predatory’ Joanna (Robyn King) add an interesting dimension to the play through their complicated relationship. One cannot gloss over Gary’s ‘sassy’ servants, Miss Erikson (Ben Morris) and Fred (Justin Kendall), who do not shy away from pointing out their employer’s insecurities and putting in their two cents on the situations Gary finds himself in. The persistent Daphne (Imogen Stracham) and Mr Roland Maule (Luke Richardson) can also be relied on for endless entertainment, in their relentless pursuit of Gary (as well as a certain character’s ‘unique’ laugh). Through the characters’ silly antics and witty quips, there was never a dull moment in the play! 

The props and costume departments put a considerable effort into emulating the 1940s, creating a very rich yet not crowded set. From the rotary dial telephone (which plays a key role in the play) to the chic dresses, the 1940s were very accurately depicted. Intricate details like matching the shade of an actor’s lipstick to that of her shoes created an overall aesthetic experience and personally, did not go unappreciated. What I found to be interesting was how the stage extended to the seating area, establishing a connection between us and the characters, drawing us deeper into Gary’s many dilemmas; in fact, before the play even opened, Daphne lay sleeping before us, setting the scene. Lighting and sound effects were kept simple and minimalistic, leaving little space for error and led to the smooth running of the play. 

Overall,Present Laughter was a delight to watch, not only because of the clever script or the brilliant performance by the actors but because of the evident attention to detail. Therefore, if you are looking to have a good laugh coupled with quality theatre, don’t miss out on Present Laughter.

Dior’s Phoney Feminism

Marc Fakobs
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Dior’s Phoney Feminism

In Dior’s recent haute couture show, models walked down a looping runway in a large building constructed to resemble a womb. Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior’s artistic director, collaborated with American artist Judy Chicago to create this enormous sculpture in the gardens of the Musée Rodin; surrounding it, banners in both French and English asked pointedly: ‘What if Women Ruled the World?’. It was a fascinating insight into the career of an-overlooked radical feminist artist who first conceived of the idea of the ‘Inflatable Mother Goddess’ in 1977, but has only now had the chance to realise it. It is now titled ‘The Female Divine’ and branded all over with Dior’s logo. Much of Chicago’s work is dedicated to recovering proto-feminist icons and celebrating them within her art, and it is this message that Chiuri wanted to amplify in her 2020 haute couture show. A respectable concept, surely?

Don’t get me wrong, the show itself was beautiful – stunning three-metre-high tapestries created by non-profit organisation the Chanakya School of Craft hung above the models as they walked, clad in lavish golden dresses inspired by the ancient Greek goddesses. The show’s message of female empowerment and creativity evidently resonated with fashion journalists and the wider public: Hettie Judah, in her article for the Guardian, congratulates Chiuri, since ‘not only is she supporting women artists, whose work continues to be underrepresented […], in celebrating magnificent older women she resists the fashion world’s obsession with youth’. Yet, in everyone’s excitement over feminist art’s fling with the world of high fashion, people have been happy to overlook the fundamental issues at stake in these shows.

I am not challenging Chiuri’s involvement with artists; in fact, I think that she and Chicago have created a beautiful exhibition (the show-room-womb is to remain open to the public). I do, however, take issue with congratulating Chiuri as if she has jeopardised her career to support a radical concept. Amplifying Judy Chicago’s work is certainly a gift to her audience, but Chiuri has neither taken steps in her shows nor clothes to further female equality. How can she be resistant to ‘the fashion world’s obsession with youth’ when almost none of the the models who showcase her clothes are older than 20 years old? It is all very well supporting a female artist who (God forbid!) is beyond her teenage years, but Chiuri has not actually risked the popularity of her latest designs by allowing anyone other than beautiful young women with no body fat nor curves to wear them. Ironically, in a building designed with the wonder of female fertility in Chicago’s mind, the models employed for the runway are required to be of such a low bodyweight that they risk interrupting their menstruation to the point of infertility. Judah does not once mention the models in her eagerness to point out that women supporting women must always be a good thing. Supporting one female feminist artist does not equate to being feminist; why no critics have picked up on the obvious hypocrisy Dior presented is entirely incomprehensible.

It is of course no secret that there are innumerable problems with high fashion modelling; as someone who is part of the industry, I am aware of appearing hypocritical when critiquing issues I help to perpetuate. Modelling for high fashion brands has its perks and there are many reasons for my doing it, despite the views expressed in this article. For example, it will help me pay for the Masters I intend to take when I am ‘too old’ for modelling. The broader issues are for another article altogether, but I believe what is at play in Dior’s show is something much more sinister. This is high fashion. This is high fashion garbed in all its anti-feminist shimmer and sequins. This is high fashion’s years of male gaze upon the female body. This is high fashion masquerading as feminism. It would be easy for Chiuri to make a move towards a more feminist show. She could build on her and Chicago’s life’s work of looking at the female body and encouraging female expression by employing older models or models of a healthier bodyweight: any attempt, really, to show that these moving clothes hangers walking down her runway are in fact actual women. The very idea of Dior’s haute couture show having anything to do with female empowerment is laughable.

But how have these teenagers got here? Before haute couture, these women (or just as often, girls) will have had to watch what they eat from about Christmas, since haute couture week is notoriously even more strict about measurements than the pret-à-porter fashion weeks. For me, one of the most heart-breaking things about working in the industry is that I have never met a runway model with a completely healthy relationship with food, and I count myself among them.

The actual week involves moving to Paris a few days before shows start and staying alone somewhere in the city, left to your own devices to travel around to all the various castings and fittings. Castings are a brutal business; physically and mentally taxing, they often entail hours of waiting around in ateliers with no respite. Last fashion week I went to the casting of a brand whose name I will not divulge (because I don’t particularly fancy getting fired) at 1:30pm: the designer turned up to his own casting four hours late. I and the 30 odd other girls were allowed to leave at 6pm. This is a very common occurrence, and only four of these girls were subsequently booked for the show. Many of these models would have had multiple other castings or fittings to attend that same day and can be called to designers into the wee hours of the morning with no notice. The latest I have ever been called out is 3am: if you do not turn up, you are not booked for the show. The disorganisation of the big brands is taken out on undeserving models who have no choice in the matter. The idea of 16 year old girls dressed in outfits inspired by the strength and beauty of the Greek goddesses, having worked 14 hour days to cast for shows and watched what they eat for months, walking out under a banner declaring ‘What if Women Ruled the World’ is possibly the cruellest joke I have seen. It certainly does not constitute feminism or female empowerment.

What if women did rule the world? I imagine that the preference for a model’s aesthetic would not be bones with some skin artfully draped on top. Nor would the show be filled predominantly with teenagers who have had to leave education at 16 in order to capitalise on their youthful looks before they fade by the grand old age of 21. Nor would the casting business be so gruelling on young women’s physical and mental health. And I believe that models, both male and female, would be regarded as people rather than as disposable vehicles for clothes.

Review: Measure for Measure

Allyson Obber
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Review: Measure for Measure

In Measure for Measure, one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, Vienna is depicted as a city of vice and perdition, such that the situation seems hopeless.

The Duke, played by an appropriately neurotic and overdramatic Albert McIntosh, leaves the city, giving full powers to Angelo (Bella Stock). In order to bring order to the city, laws are implemented more rigidly, and Claudio is arrested for breaking them. From there, this one-hour play about justice begins, in a whirlwind of colours and witty banter, with a brilliant all-but-one female cast. However, while it is mostly a comedy, content warning for sexual assault, which is treated with great thoughtfulness throughout the play.

Dorothy McDowell’s production is clearly stylised and shows a peculiar, fun creative vision. When the posters say that it is a colourful production, they are not lying. From the costumes (Rebecca Perez), with a monochromatic theme for each character, to the set design (Lauren Komer), this play is a delight to look at. The audience is treated to a commenter/Mariana (Gabriella Fitzgerald) playing the sax while waiting for the show to start and you can enjoy the aesthetically-pleasing stage.

The cast was overall enjoyable to watch. Stock’s perennial frown and intimidating mannerism, the fervour and desperation shown by Madison Onsager, who plays Isabella, Claudio’s sister, Fitzgerald’s irony and quiet indignation, all of these, from the smallest to the biggest detail, show a cast who understood their characters. While at times they overplayed them a bit too much to maintain believability, it was never such a problem that they became caricatures, and they quickly subdued their overacting.

The actors were also brilliant at carrying out fast and witty conversations, especially in scenes with more than two characters. In those, the actors were competently coordinated, testimony to McDowell’s skill as a director. In particular, whenever Emily Hassan and Margot Worsely, who played Lucio and Mistress Overdone respectively, were on stage, they played off the other actors with such ease and charm that they seem to have perfected how to act a genuine conversation. A separate note must be made for the absolutely brilliant actress that was Lola Beal as Escalus: she was subtle when needed, incredibly believable and conveyed her emotions easily – she made me want to actively look for her again, which does not happen often.

Moreover, this is an adaptation that is enjoyable for fans of the original. The lines are mostly the same, although cuts and rearrangements were needed to fit everything in a one hour slot. However, it could be confusing for someone with no knowledge of the original plot points, as very little explanation is offered for certain actions.

It is not necessary to read the original, but flicking through the plot may be helpful – especially if you are not comfortable with Shakespearean language. Some minor technicalities in the lighting department – at times, the actors were lit weirdly, as if the focus was not supposed to be on them – did not impair my enjoyment of the play.

Overall, with actors that are able to deliver a performance that is both fun and competent, it was an incredibly entertaining, aesthetically-pleasing experience from start to finish.

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