The Isis Interviews Robert Bristow
I’m sitting under two huge portraits of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, waiting to speak to Robert Bristow, theatre manager of the Burton Taylor studio. This is the space which serves all of Oxford’s budding dramatists, donated by Richard Burton, who performed at the Playhouse as a student.
Review: Entertaining Mr Sloane
As I take my ringside seat in the Burton Taylor Studio, I get the sense that I am about to witness a fight. The setting of chintzy sofas, ceramic lamps, and plated crumpets – the picture of dreary 1960s domesticity – seems an unlikely place for a brawl. But ‘My Generation’ by The Who crackle
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
Post-Brexit Theatre: An Interview with Jeremy Herrin
As the initial outrage over Brexit begins to simmer, the Arts community remain among the most outspoken critics of the decision to leave the European Union. It’s no secret that the majority of the cultural sector voted to remain; a poll of the Creative Industries Federation members put this at a s
Antigone of Syria
“Our two brothers on a single day, A wretched pair, with hands aimed at each other, Killing themselves, have shared a doom in common. And now we two, the last ones left—consider How much worse death will be for us if we Defy the law and flout the rulers’ vote and power.” This passage could [
The difficulties of staging an opera about rape
The Rape of Lucretia is being performed at St Peter’s College in seventh week of Hilary Term. Yet many voices have emerged to challenge the production. The controversy and struggle endured by the production team even to get the opera staged is far beyond what most experience when putting together
The Meaning of Arts Cuts
I am waiting to go onstage during my secondary school’s adaptation of The Canterbury Tales, wearing a shop-bought fancy dress costume that is meant to transform me into Geoffrey Chaucer. Other schools are putting on Hairspray and West Side Story. In whispers and gasps, news flits around the backst
