Review: Wishbone
An unfinished Scrabble board, the crumpled duvet of a queen-size bed, a packet of sliced white bread, clusters of spice jars, and a carboard box of kitchen utensils sprawl across the stage of the Burton Taylor Studio, as the curtains rise on Coco Cottam’s new play, Wishbone. So far, not so differe
Review: SKIN
Content warning: chronic illness, grief. ‘How’s your back, by the way?’ The first thirty seconds or so of Peter Todd’s new play Skin, staged last week at Keble’s O’Reilly Theatre, pose as classic student drama fare: it opens with laughter in the dark, sisters spra
Tea-time: In Conversation with Hamblin Bread
To bake, according to Kate Hamblin, is to surrender your hands to the rhythm of your ingredients. Hugo Thurston and Kate Hamblin opened Hamblin Bread on Iffley Road in 2018, placing stone-milled flour and heritage grains at the heart of their neighbourhood bakery. Shao-Yi Wong interviews Thurston an
Review: Cezanne at Tate Modern
It is said, perhaps to the point of cliché, that Paul Cezanne was the “father of modernism”. Amusingly, when Tate was first offered a painting by Cezanne in 1921 (The François Zola Dam, 1877-8), its then director rejected the loan, on the grounds that he was too modern. A century on, however,
Tea-time: In Conversation with Skye McAlpine
“A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.” Elsa Schiaparelli’s words are certainly true of Skye McAlpine, the Venice-based cookery writer behind the hit blog From My Dining Table (and graduate of University College, Oxford). In A Table in Venice and A Table for Friends –
On Asphalt and Satin
Sei allem Abschied voran, als wäre er hinter dir, wie der Winter, der eben geht. Be ahead of every leave-taking as if it were behind you, like the just-departing winter. Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, XIII I live in Berlin and study in Oxford. Every time I come back to Oxford, it
Fashioning Decline
“It is quite consummate, is it not!” cries the Aesthetic Bridegroom of his new teapot, in a Punch cartoon of 1880. “It is, indeed!” replies his Intense Bride. “Oh, Algernon, let us live up to it!” Let us surround ourselves with beautiful things, and let those selves live up to them. The
Complaints from the Chinese Boudoir
“At daybreak, I pace idly in the courtyard with a silk fan. Cold autumn is at hand, and I know the fan will soon be discarded. A crow flits by and secures its position on the palace roof. The croaking bird is no match for my complexion, smooth as jade. Yet why is it able […]
Rosalía – Motomami – Camaleona
“¿Oye, ya has escuchado el nuevo disco de la Rosalía?” my mother asks, shifting gears. We’re driving home from the Bilbao airport, where I have just arrived for the Easter holidays. After months away, everything looks unfamiliar – the trees, the mountains, even the blue sky seems oddly off