Review: Metamorphosis
“You should be hearing this in your left ear.” “You should be hearing this in your right ear.” I was. The voice of Sonya Luchanskaya delivered these words through the respective drivers on my personal headphone set, which were waiting at my seat as I walked into the Michael P
Emerging Blinking: ‘Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth and Reality’ at the Ashmolean
The Ashmolean’s Sainsbury Gallery is rarely so atmospheric. Dark walls loom over codices and drypoint, partitions make the rooms themselves maze-like, and the space is given a feeling of hushed silence – normally. On my third visit, it’s Summer VIIIs, and viewers huddle in the cool away from t
Apocalypse Soon: A Review of Pacifiction (2022)
The title of Albert Serra’s* most recent film Pacifiction is meant to be a portmanteau of ‘Pacific’ and ‘fiction’, but it might just as well be viewed sideways as an addled variation on the word ‘pacification’. The film, a nearly three-hour submersion into the lush, narcotic,
Drunk On A Flight: An Interview with Singer-Songwriter, Eloise
Releasing her debut album ‘Drunk On A Flight’ earlier this year, Eloise’s sweet, mellow voice, jazz-infused harmonies, and delicate lyrics are the perfect soundtrack to hazy afternoons and warm summer nights. Gearing up for tours in Europe and North America, I managed to catch her for a conver
Rock’n’roll flotsam: Bar Italia at the Jericho Tavern
On Sunday 14th May, a mixed crowd of students, locals, and (according to The Times) “various figureheads from Oxford’s music scene” gathered in the Jericho Tavern for a show by Bar Italia, a London-based band currently touring to promote their new album, Tracey Denim. I use the word ‘perform
The Curse of Wuthering Heights: A case study into why adaptations flop, and why directors can’t stay away.
Wuthering Heights has an element of the reverse Midas touch, in the sense that almost every director who touches the book ends up tarnishing it. It has been dubbed ‘The Unfilmable’, but that hasn’t stopped people from trying. Over twenty screen adaptations of the novel exist, including a 200-e
Review: Gilgamesh All Night Epic
For her sixth and final lecture as Professor of Poetry, Alice Oswald convened a nine-hour performance of The Epic of Gilgamesh, scheduled to begin at around 8 pm on Sunday 30th April and take the audience into May Day morning. My expectations for the number of attendees were reasonably low. It quick
‘Stock Till You Drop
There’s something a little carnivalesque about an Oxford college putting on a music festival. For a single day, Wadham takes Woodstock; straight-laced Oxford students become free spirits, transported away from Parks Road into a nostalgic reimagining of the summer of ‘69. It’s all quite
Review: Forgery
Sitting on a crowded bench in Wadham’s antechapel, waiting for the sold-out performance of Forgery, my first thought was ‘What an enormous organ!’. Once the play began, however, it was clear that the unusual venue was perfect, enhancing the play’s grandeur and menace. The production was also