Giving Ukrainian Literature Its Due
As Ukraine faced renewed invasion by Russian forces in February 2022, the world’s gaze fixed on the nation with a new intensity. Swept into the spotlight amid a flood of battlefield reports, Ukrainian culture was recognised abroad in a way it had never been before. Exhibitions, concerts, bookshop
Itadakimasu
では、ゆっくり味わいましょう。 Dewa, yukkuri ajiwaimashō, or “Well then, let’s enjoy this slowly”, I recall my grandmother saying to me over tea before watching her daily dose of travel shows. While I was living with her, the two of us would sit down every afternoon on the zabu
Review: Blithe Spirit
Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit is an entertaining reminder of why going to the theatre is so much fun. The writer Charles Condomine, seeking inspiration for his next novel in the artificial performance of the occult, invites the medium Madame Arcati to host a very theatrical séance in his living ro
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