Reviews by Kathryn
Rebus: A Game Called Malice
Kathryn
Sir Ian Rankin, the author of this play, is one of Britain’s most distinguished crime writers. His reputation is based largely on John Rebus, the grumpy Scottish detective who prowls gloomily ...
2 months ago
Rebus: A Game Called Malice
Funny Girl
Kathryn
Coming to an old but well-known musical with no previous knowledge of it was an interesting experience. You expect lots of music of course and lots of laughs and a happy ending. Well, Funny Girl is ...
6 months ago
Funny Girl
Bach Now!
Kathryn
Nigel Kennedy, the former enfant terrible of classical music, took the world by storm in the 1980s with his spiky hair and spiky rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, loved by some and hated by ...
a year ago
Bach Now!
The Lord Chamberlain’s men: Romeo and Juliet
Kathryn
Undeterred by the gentle rain, a large crowd arrived at Waddesdon Manor, bussed up from the car park, to watch the Lord’s Chamberlain’s Men perform Romeo and Juliet on the lawn in front of this ...
a year ago
The Lord Chamberlain’s men: Romeo and Juliet
Kanneh-Mason Trio
Kathryn
The Kanneh-Mason Trio performing at the Sheldonian Theatre is described in the programme as ‘Britain’s most talented siblings’, but in fact these three extraordinarily talented siblings spring ...
a year ago
Kanneh-Mason Trio
J.S. Bach: Concertos for Two Harpsichords
Kathryn
Instruments of Time and Truth have based their name on an Oratorio by Handel which (translated from the Italian) is The Triumph of Time and Truth. Tonight’s concert of mainly J S Bach’s music for ...
2 years ago
J.S. Bach: Concertos for Two Harpsichords
The Shawshank Redemption
Kathryn
'Get Busy Livin or Get Busy Dyin' The 1994 film of The Shawshank Redemption is considered by many to be among the greatest films ever made: would a stage play come up to that level? It does. It does ...
2 years ago
The Shawshank Redemption
Pixels Ensemble
Kathryn
Holywell Music Room has wonderful acoustics: where better, then, than here to listen to 3 very different but beautiful pieces of music chosen and performed by the delightful Pixels Ensemble. The ...
2 years ago
Pixels Ensemble
The Mirror Crack'd
Kathryn
What does an Agatha Christie virgin expect from her first visit to an Agatha Christie play? A real whodunnit with bodies in the library? Lots of screaming and false alarms until the final truth is ...
2 years ago
The Mirror Crack'd
Julius Caesar
Kathryn
On a somewhat damp evening, we all trooped over one of Magdalen College School’s white bridges to stands set up round three sides, which were well-spaced so that everyone could see. The first ...
2 years ago
Julius Caesar
OUP Orchestra: Summer Concert 2022
Kathryn
It is always a pleasure to go to a concert in St Barnabas Church in Jericho. Built in the Victorian era to serve the poor, it is a striking church with its square campanile tower and its gorgeous and ...
2 years ago
OUP Orchestra: Summer Concert 2022
Grimm Tales for Fragile Times & Broken People
Kathryn
If you think that the Creation Theatre’s latest offering is something to cheer you up in these ‘fragile times’ then think again. Grimm Tales... by this group of five actors is a seriously dark ...
4 years ago
Grimm Tales for Fragile Times & Broken People
Oxford Millennium Orchestra Concert: Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony
Kathryn
The Oxford Millennium Orchestra put on a programme of music by composers who were radical in their day, as the conductor, David Hume, humorously informed us during the course of the evening. ...
5 years ago
Oxford Millennium Orchestra Concert: Saint-Saëns' Organ Symphony
Ordinary Love [12A]
Kathryn
Ordinary Love is a film about exactly that: the love of two very ordinary people and how they face the world together – and alone. They are not special, and what they have to face is not all that ...
5 years ago
Ordinary Love [12A]
Official Secrets [15]
Kathryn
Keira Knightley, as Katharine Gun, stands nervously in the dock where she is asked ‘Do you plead guilty or not guilty?’ - and the screen goes blank.
This is how Official Secrets starts. It is ...
5 years ago
Official Secrets [15]
Oxford Coffee Concerts 2019
Kathryn
Daniel Lebhardt, 1st September 2019 On the first official day of autumn, Oxford Coffee Concerts in Holywell Music Room treated us to a memorable performance of Bach, Brahms and Bartok by the talented ...
5 years ago
Oxford Coffee Concerts 2019
Oxford Proms 2019
Kathryn
The magic of Mozart is a slight misnomer, as the concert also comprised two other pieces by different composers, but the main ingredients of this delightful concert were Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto ...
5 years ago
Oxford Proms 2019
Mendelssohn Piano Trio in C Minor, Beethoven Piano Trio Op 76 No 2
Kathryn
How do you cope with the stress of being a City lawyer? Or a practising barrister? Or a teacher? Why, play the piano, cello and violin in St Nicolas Church, Abingdon on a cold Sunday afternoon and ...
6 years ago
Mendelssohn Piano Trio in C Minor, Beethoven Piano Trio Op 76 No 2
The White Crow [12A]
Kathryn
20 years ago, Ralph Fiennes read a biography of Rudolf Nureyev, the outstanding Russian ballet dancer, and the story of his early life, as he says, got under his skin.Scripted by David Hare and ...
6 years ago
The White Crow [12A]
The Unreturning
Kathryn
The Unreturning is a new play by award-winning playwright Anna Jordan, which is performed by Frantic Assembly. It is worth describing Frantic Assembly: this is a national training programme aimed at ...
6 years ago
The Unreturning
Debussy & Mozart Favourites: Works for Flute, Harp, Piano & Strings
Kathryn
The Oxford Chamber Music Society’s offering on Sunday was the Pixels Ensemble.This is a group of talented musicians gathered by pianist and artistic director Ian Buckle who play together in ...
6 years ago
Debussy & Mozart Favourites: Works for Flute, Harp, Piano & Strings
Mary Poppins Returns [PG]
Kathryn
Emily Blunt (a severe yet endearing Mary Poppins) stated that she did not watch the original film before the making of Mary Poppins Returns, but she did go back to the P L Travers books to create her ...
6 years ago
Mary Poppins Returns [PG]
Peterloo [12A]
Kathryn
Mike Leigh has been making films since 1971, 13 full-length feature films and 3 short films to date with countless television dramas to his name as well. Many, though not all, are of ‘ordinary ...
6 years ago
Peterloo [12A]
First Man [12A]
Kathryn
First Man follows the career of Neil Armstrong in the 1960s, from the Gemini launches through to his walk on the moon in 1969. No spoiler alert here as everyone knows he was the first person to walk ...
6 years ago
First Man [12A]
Joaquín Achúcarro and Around Granada
Kathryn
With a trip to Granada coming up, I was curious to hear this partly Spanish programme of music and to see and hear this classical Spanish pianist in action.
The first half of the concert was indeed ...
7 years ago
Joaquín Achúcarro and Around Granada
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society [12A]
Kathryn
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, based on a book by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, is set in Guernsey in 1946. Guernsey was occupied by the Germans from 1940 to 1945 and the ...
7 years ago
The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society [12A]
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Kathryn
Robert Peston is a journalist and television presenter who needs very little introduction. I remember him as the BBC’s economic presenter before he moved to ITV: famously he predicted the financial ...
7 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Kathryn
Lieutenant General Sir John Kiszely’s talk was delivered to perfection. He spoke clearly without notes but not too fast, imparting information without overloading his audience with facts. He did ...
7 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Kathryn
Julia Hobsbawm was introduced as a writer and speaker, a visiting professor at the Cass Business School and the University of Suffolk, and the founder of the Knowledge Networking Company. A busy ...
7 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Kathryn
Having recently read a historical novel set in Elizabethan Tudor England, which touched on slaves who had been freed, I was curious to hear what really happened around that time. In fact, Dr. ...
7 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Kathryn
Ben Arogundade is an English-born journalist, author, and publisher who happened to be in Times Square when it was announced that Obama had been elected the first African American president. From ...
7 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Finding Your Feet [12A]
Kathryn
Richard Loncraine’s silver-haired rom-com tells the story of a woman finding her feet, in more ways than one, after she discovers her husband has been having an affair with a family friend. Her ...
7 years ago
Finding Your Feet [12A]
Driving Miss Daisy
Kathryn
It is inevitable, when you know a film as well as I know Driving Miss Daisy, that you will make comparisons between the film and the stage show, and there is a chance you will be disappointed. I was ...
7 years ago
Driving Miss Daisy
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Kathryn
Rita, Sue and Bob Too is Andrea Dunbar’s semi-autobiographical play about growing up on one of Bradford’s poorest estates in Thatcher’s Britain: it was first staged at the Royal Court in 1982. ...
7 years ago
Rita, Sue and Bob Too
Oxford Proms - Ian Brown (piano) and Friends
Kathryn
Pianist Ian Brown’s friends for the evening were the Pavlova Wind Quintet and the violinist Edmund Jones in an evening of delightfully eclectic music. The Pavlova Wind Quintet (Chris Britton on ...
7 years ago
Oxford Proms - Ian Brown (piano) and Friends
Stanley A Man of Variety [15]
Kathryn
The 2017 Oxford Film Festival opened on Friday night at the Phoenix Picturehouse with two short films and a feature-length film starring Timothy Spall, followed by a Q and A with Spall and his ...
8 years ago
Stanley A Man of Variety [15]
The Sense of an Ending [15]
Kathryn
Tony Webster, played to perfection in old age by Jim Broadbent, is a man who has lived an ordinary life in which he says he has neither won nor lost: we see him at school with his mates; his ...
8 years ago
The Sense of an Ending [15]
A Quiet Passion [12A]
Kathryn
A Quiet Passion, a film by Terence Davies, charts the life of the American poet, Emily Dickinson, born into a wealthy Massachusetts family in 1830. The film begins with perhaps her first real ...
8 years ago
A Quiet Passion [12A]
Brontë
Kathryn
Polly Teale wrote Brontë in 2005, a play about the famous Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, which chronicles their lives in their isolated parsonage, looking after their ageing father ...
8 years ago
Brontë
Dona Nobis Pacem
Kathryn
On Saturday night, Jubilate Chamber Choir (under the directorship of Benjamin Nicholas) and the Berkeley Sinfonia came together for an evening of 20th and 21st century music. Gabriel Jackson's ...
8 years ago
Dona Nobis Pacem
The Innocents [15]
Kathryn
The Innocents, (Les Innocentes) a film by Anne Fontaine (who also brought us Coco Before Chanel) is based on true events. It is set at the end of World War II: a young French doctor, Mathilde ...
8 years ago
The Innocents [15]
The Light Between Oceans [12A]
Kathryn
The Light Between Oceans is based on the first novel by M L Stedman, a Western Australian author now living in London. The author refuses to talk about herself, wanting the reader to enjoy her story ...
8 years ago
The Light Between Oceans [12A]
Sand in the Sandwiches
Kathryn
Sand in the Sandwiches is a one-man play based on the life and poetry of Poet Laureate John Betjeman. Hugh Whitemore's play takes us gently through parts of Betjeman's life, though the line between ...
8 years ago
Sand in the Sandwiches
Oxford Proms - Clarinet Dreams with Lucy Downer
Kathryn
Having a son who once played the clarinet, I was interested to go to a concert featuring this much underrated instrument. It turned out to be a wonderful and varied evening of music. Lucy Downer is ...
8 years ago
Oxford Proms - Clarinet Dreams with Lucy Downer
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Kathryn
Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of Shakespeare's early plays, is a tale of friendship, love, betrayal and ultimately friendship again. Valentine (Guy Hughes) goes to Milan: his friend Proteus (Dharmesh ...
8 years ago
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
Oxford Festival of the Arts 2016
Kathryn
John Simpson is a towering figure among BBC journalists, in more ways than one. Born in 1944, he joined the BBC in September 1966 and has been working for that organisation ever since, often sending ...
8 years ago
Oxford Festival of the Arts 2016
A Bigger Splash [15]
Kathryn
A Bigger Splash is described as an erotic thriller. Erotic, yes, and voluptuous and edgy, but I would not call it a thriller. The film starts in almost silence, with pop star Marianne (Tilda Swinton) ...
9 years ago
A Bigger Splash [15]
Flare Path
Kathryn
Flare Path, by Terence Rattigan, was written during WWII. Rattigan was a rear gunner (a tail end Charlie) who went out on offensives with Bomber Command so he knew what he was talking about when he ...
9 years ago
Flare Path
Youth [15]
Kathryn
Fred Ballinger (Caine) is an ageing composer and conductor, holed up in an expensive Swiss spa hotel with his daughter Lena (Weisz) and his old friend from way back Boyle (Keitel). The film starts ...
9 years ago
Youth [15]
He Named Me Malala [PG]
Kathryn
He Named Me Malala is a documentary about the extraordinary young woman who stood up for girls' education in Pakistan and as a result was seriously wounded by the Taliban at the age of 15. The fact ...
9 years ago
He Named Me Malala [PG]
The Emperor String Quartet
Kathryn
Oxford Coffee concerts, inaugurated in 1986 and held in the beautiful surroundings of Holywell Music Room, have become an institution in Oxford. Almost every Sunday of the year, visiting musicians ...
9 years ago
The Emperor String Quartet
The Lady in the Van [12A]
Kathryn
The play by Alan Bennett, was first performed in 1999 and was nominated for the Play of the Year Olivier in 2000. Having seen and loved the play all those years ago, I was curious to see if the film ...
9 years ago
The Lady in the Van [12A]
Pentecost
Kathryn
Pentecost was voted 'Best New Play' in 1995, yet this 20 year old play resonates in 2015, much more than Ophir Productions realised for one of the three main themes of this play is the status of ...
9 years ago
Pentecost
Adderbury Ensemble: Mozart and Schumann
Kathryn
Adderbury Ensemble concerts I have been to before (and I try to go to them as often as I can) have always been string concerts - quartets and quintets.Tonight’s performance was a bit different: ...
9 years ago
Adderbury Ensemble: Mozart and Schumann
Legally Blonde - Oxford Operatic Society
Kathryn
Legally Blonde was first a book by Amanda Brown, then a film (2001) and in 2007 it opened as a musical on Broadway. When it transferred to the West End in 2009, it was awarded the Olivier for the ...
10 years ago
Legally Blonde - Oxford Operatic Society
Intermezzo Chamber Choir
Kathryn
Intermezzo call themselves Oxford’s vacation choir. Although there are over a hundred choirs in the Oxford area, most of them only operate during term time so Andrew Ker founded Intermezzo in 2012 ...
10 years ago
Intermezzo Chamber Choir
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Kathryn
John Crace (I Never Promised You a Rose Garden) is a parliamentary sketch writer and his talk was also full of anecdotes as well as witty impressions. However, there was no coherent pattern to his ...
10 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Kathryn
With friends on Friday, we wanted to finish off the day with a 6pm talk before going out to dinner so we picked a topic none of us knew anything about: Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys into the ...
10 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
All My Sons
Kathryn
All My Sons, first produced in 1947, was Arthur’s Miller’s first big success, establishing him as a major playwright of the day. The play is based on a true story of defects in planes supplied ...
10 years ago
All My Sons
Dimitar Burov (violin/viola) Mina Miletic (piano)
Kathryn
Dimitar Burov and Mina Miletic played four pieces in the lovely setting of Holywell Music Room: Bach’s Chaconne for solo violin in D minor BWV 1004; Shostakovich’s Sonata for violin and piano ...
10 years ago
Dimitar Burov (violin/viola) Mina Miletic (piano)
Copenhagen
Kathryn
The two male protagonists in Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen are Niels Bohr, famous among other things for his work on quantum physics and his theory of complementarity, and Werner Heisenberg, ...
10 years ago
Copenhagen
Pitcairn
Kathryn
Pitcairn is the South Pacific island on which Fletcher Christian landed with nine of his mutineers, twelve Tahitian women, six Tahitian men and one child. In 1808, almost twenty years later, the ...
10 years ago
Pitcairn
Twelfth Night
Kathryn
The audience for OUDS production of Twelfth Night take their seats to the sound of the shipping forecast (very appropriate given the louring skies) then, as the lights go down, two beautiful, ...
10 years ago
Twelfth Night
Betty Blue Eyes
Kathryn
Betty Blue Eyes is a musical based on A Private Function, a very funny film with screenplay by Alan Bennett. The story is set in 1947 post-war rationed Britain, where most meat is spam spam spam. It ...
11 years ago
Betty Blue Eyes
Translations
Kathryn
The Oxford Playhouse was a-buzz on a Tuesday evening: obviously there were great expectations for English Touring Theatre’s production of Brian Friel’s Translations. ...
11 years ago
Translations
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
Kathryn
Isn’t the Oxford Literary Festival wonderful? I arrived this morning to find that my Ghanaian author was, very sadly, indisposed but would I like to go to something else? What I was offered as ...
11 years ago
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
Kathryn
An overview by John Campbell of the life of Roy Jenkins (Roy Jenkins: A Well-Rounded Life) and his significance on the political scene of the second half of the twentieth century. Mr Campbell knows ...
11 years ago
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
Kathryn
An emotionally charged conversation between Jesmyn Ward and Jewell Parker Rhodes, both African American women from the American deep south. Ms Rhodes took Ms Ward through some of the defining ...
11 years ago
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom [12A]
Kathryn
The critics have said that the story of Mandela could not be squeezed into a 2 ¼ hour film. To a certain extent this is true. The director, Justin Chadwick, has had to make big decisions about ...
11 years ago
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom [12A]
The Butler [12A]
Kathryn
The Butler is very, very loosely based on the life of Eugene Allen, a man who worked for 34 years as a butler at the White House, starting in President Truman’s time and finishing with ...
11 years ago
The Butler [12A]
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Kathryn
Creation Theatre’s production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, aptly chosen for the 50th anniversary of CS Lewis’s death this year, is a spectacle of song and drama. The story we ...
11 years ago
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Bluestocking!
Kathryn
The Bluestocking is a brand-new musical written by Alex Thomas (Head of Drama at Magdalen College School I am told) and performed by the students of MCS. It is set in 1920: women have got the vote ...
11 years ago
The Bluestocking!
The Arrow of Sherwood by Lauren Johnson
Kathryn
Robin of Locksley returns from the Crusades to find that his father has died and he is in danger of losing his inheritance. Robin was thought to be dead and the woman to whom he was betrothed, ...
11 years ago
The Arrow of Sherwood by Lauren Johnson
Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda,and Roberto Devereux
Kathryn
Donizetti’s Anna Bolena is part of his Tudor trilogy (Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda and Roberto Devereux) which the Welsh National Opera is performing this week at the New Theatre. Forget your ...
11 years ago
Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda,and Roberto Devereux
Behind the Candelabra [15]
Kathryn
Behind The Candelabra is Soderbergh’s portrayal of the five-year relationship between Liberace and his young lover Scott Thorson, based on the book of the same name written by Thorson (and Alex ...
12 years ago
Behind the Candelabra [15]
Blue Remembered Hills
Kathryn
Blue Remembered Hills, a play by Dennis Potter, takes its name from A E Housman’s A Shropshire Lad and tells a tale of lost childhood, lost innocence.
The actors are all adults playing ...
12 years ago
Blue Remembered Hills
Mansfield Park
Kathryn
Mansfield Park, one of the six novels Jane Austen produced in a creative burst towards the end of her tragically short life, has been adapted by Tim Luscombe and is a Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds ...
12 years ago
Mansfield Park
Samsara [12A]
Kathryn
Samsara, Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson’s latest creation, is a real feast for the eyes. Samsara, a Sanskrit word, means ‘the ever-turning wheel of life’; Samsara, the film, ...
12 years ago
Samsara [12A]
Wheels On The Bus
Kathryn
The Wheels on the Bus at the Oxford Playhouse is simply one person, a talented singer and storyteller called Poppy, a trunk and a large cardboard bus. Poppy leads us through a series of well-known ...
12 years ago
Wheels On The Bus
Pygmalion
Kathryn
Few places can match Garsington Manor Gardens as a setting: so says the programme and it is true. If you are lucky enough to have a dry evening, the first act will take place out of doors (the ...
12 years ago
Pygmalion
The Taming Of The Shrew
Kathryn
Take your seats in the spacious courtyard of the Oxford Castle – there are no bad seats. Enter the first actors, Laurentio and his servant, Tranio, followed by a saucy Bianca singing an ...
13 years ago
The Taming Of The Shrew
Vita & Virginia
Kathryn
Eileen Atkins’ play about Vita (Sackville-West) and Virginia (Woolf) is based on letters written by these two women over the nearly twenty years that they knew each other. I remember a ...
13 years ago
Vita & Virginia
Magetsi
Kathryn
If you ever get the chance to see a performance by Two Gents Productions, grab that chance. I first came across these two actors performing Two Gentlemen of Verona at the North Wall. How ...
13 years ago
Magetsi
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf
Kathryn
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is part of Brasenose College’s Arts Week, a celebration of drama, music, poetry and more. Some of the events are taking place outdoors but Edward ...
13 years ago
Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf
Now Until the Hour
Kathryn
The telephone rings and rings and rings and slowly Mary appears. She has spilt her coffee, she is unsure whether to answer the phone, she agonises. This is how David K O’Hara’s new play Now Until ...
13 years ago
Now Until the Hour
Breaking The Code
Kathryn
Breaking the Code is Hugh Whitemore’s biographical drama about Alan Turing, the mathematician famous for helping to break the Enigma codes at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. ...
13 years ago
Breaking The Code
Speechless
Kathryn
The story of Jennifer and June Gibbons, the twins who refused to communicate to the outside world and developed an intense, destructive dependency on each other, is one that has long fascinated me ...
13 years ago
Speechless
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
Kathryn
Little Voice is the story of a shy girl whose huge talent is ripe for exploitation by the unscrupulous boyfriend of a feckless mother. That’s the story in a nutshell, but Jim Cartwright’s ...
13 years ago
The Rise And Fall Of Little Voice
John Williams
Kathryn
John Williams in concert: once again Music at Oxford has provided us with a world-class performer and a world-class performance. John Williams’ slight figure and modest appearance belie the fact ...
14 years ago
John Williams
Raphael Wallfisch plays the Bach Cello Suites
Kathryn
Music At Oxford chose a lovely venue to stage Bach’s six suites for cello. St. Barnabas church, tucked away in the back streets of Jericho, is a feast for the eyes just as Bach’s cello suites are ...
14 years ago
Raphael Wallfisch plays the Bach Cello Suites
Three Bonzos & A Piano
Kathryn
Three Bonzos and a Piano and the big question was who would be on stage? Certainly not Viv Stanshall who died in a fire so many years ago and the world is a saner but sadder world without him. Neil ...
14 years ago
Three Bonzos & A Piano
Adderbury Ensemble
Kathryn
The Adderbury Ensemble (formed in 1986) are halfway through a series of four summer concerts in Holywell Music Room, and last night we were treated to Bach, Handel and Vivaldi - and ...
14 years ago
Adderbury Ensemble
The Taming of the Shrew
Kathryn
The Taming of the Shrew is a strange play for the 21st century. Politically totally incorrect for today, it basically tells the story of a man who openly admits that he wants to marry for money and ...
14 years ago
The Taming of the Shrew
8th Brookes Human Rights Film Festival
Kathryn
The Burma Play, performed by two professional actors and a musician, is a play which tells the tragic story of Burma. ‘A comedy of terror’ is the sub-title and the mixture of biting humour and ...
15 years ago
8th Brookes Human Rights Film Festival
Emma Johnson & Pascal Rogé
Kathryn
Music at Oxford brought together Emma Johnson, clarinet, and Pascal Rogé, pianist, last night in a concert of nineteenth and twentieth century music for the two instruments. We were treated to a ...
15 years ago
Emma Johnson & Pascal Rogé
Cracks [15]
Kathryn
Cracks, based on the book by Sheila Kohler, is the debut film of Jordan Scott, daughter of Ridley Scott (whose name also appears in the credits). It tells of a group of girls in a boarding school, ...
15 years ago
Cracks [15]
Joe Brown
Kathryn
No frills, a bare stage, no fancy lighting – Joe Brown’s show is all performance, and a very slick performance it is. He has been performing for 42 years, apparently, and has recently been ...
15 years ago
Joe Brown
The American Pilot
Kathryn
The Oxford Theatre Guild have taken on a modern, ambitious play to start their autumn season. The American Pilot, first commissioned for and performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2005, tells ...
15 years ago
The American Pilot
Letters of a Love Betrayed
Kathryn
‘Letters of a Love Betrayed’ is an opera by Eleanor Alberga based on a short story by Isabel Allende. Analia is an orphan who lives a secluded life in a convent, her ‘shadows’ more real to ...
15 years ago
Letters of a Love Betrayed
The North Wall Festival 2009
Kathryn
Amy Dickson, saxophone, and Martin Cousin, piano, treated us to a delightful evening of twentieth century music as part of the North Wall festival. The Australian Amy Dickson is apparently a ...
15 years ago
The North Wall Festival 2009
Romeo & Juliet
Kathryn
Oxford Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet, performed in Wadham College’s beautiful walled garden, is set in ‘an Oxford curiously similar to our own, but not quite’. The company were ...
16 years ago
Romeo & Juliet
The Winslow Boy
Kathryn
Terence Rattigan’s play The Winslow Boy was first performed in 1946 when Britain was still reeling from the war. It was inspired by a true story but it does not try to be an accurate portrayal of ...
16 years ago
The Winslow Boy
Heath Quartet
Kathryn
The Heath Quartet – Oliver Heath on violin, Rebecca Eves on violin, Gary Pomeroy on viola and Christopher Murray on cello – treated us to a stunning rendition of three very different musical ...
16 years ago
Heath Quartet
Garsington Opera 2009
Kathryn
WOW! Rossini’s La Cenerentola is an operatic retelling of the Cinderella story. A small gentle-looking girl (Angelina or La Cenerentola) steps out of an old caravan and from this slight body pours ...
16 years ago
Garsington Opera 2009
A Month in the Country
Kathryn
A Month in the Country threatened to turn into a month in St. John’s as we wove our way through the various quads looking for bright young things in period costume who could tell us whether or not ...
16 years ago
A Month in the Country
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Kathryn
History – “It’s so in the past”. This was the reaction of a Sixth Former when Laurence Rees gave a talk at a school. Does it matter? Rees believes passionately that it does: our ability to ...
16 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Kathryn
Gillian Slovo is a novelist living and working in London, but she is also the daughter of Joe Slovo and Ruth First, both political activists who had to flee South Africa in 1963. Ruth First was ...
16 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Kathryn
The Literary Festival kicked off yesterday and one of the first speakers was Dr. Vince Cable, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and their Treasure spokesman. In my view he is the sanest voice to ...
16 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
The Boat That Rocked [15]
Kathryn
The Boat that Rocked has all the hallmarks of a Richard Curtis film, from the collages of people and the historical setting to the larger than life characters and the familiar faces. We have Bill ...
16 years ago
The Boat That Rocked [15]
Amadeus
Kathryn
Amadeus, Peter Schaffer’s clever, funny, sad play is a very difficult play to produce and depends on strong performances from the two main parts, particularly the actor playing Salieri. For those ...
16 years ago
Amadeus
Oxfringe 2009
Kathryn
Oxfringe started in 2007 with just 2 events. This year they are playing host to 147 events across Oxford during the first two weeks of April. A mixture of drama (some of it from the Edinburgh and ...
16 years ago
Oxfringe 2009
Forensic Science Lecture
Kathryn
Did you know that DNA profiling became possible in the 1980s and revolutionised the work of forensic scientists? That the UK had the first (and the largest) DNA database in the world? That a shoe ...
16 years ago
Forensic Science Lecture
Frost/Nixon [15]
Kathryn
Frost/Nixon is the story of the four interviews Richard Nixon gave David Frost in 1977, three years after he had had to resign as President. I had not seen the original interviews so I did not ...
16 years ago
Frost/Nixon [15]
Flashdance - The Musical
Kathryn
Flashdance the film is a vehicle for a lot of dancing and a lot of close ups of writhing thighs and I had heard that clever photography and stand-in dancers were used for the dance routines, so I was ...
16 years ago
Flashdance - The Musical
Hysteria
Kathryn
Hysteria, a play written and acted by Lucinka Eisler, Giulia Innocenti and Ben Lewis who together make up the Inspector Sands Theatre Collective, and it is about … well ostensibly a meal in a ...
16 years ago
Hysteria
Mile End
Kathryn
The theatre company Analogue say that they tell stories that have made an impact on them. Mile End certainly made an impact on me. The flyer tells you that the play was inspired by a true story so ...
16 years ago
Mile End
Playhouse Plays Out 2008
Kathryn
How can a digger be coy, be loving, be flirtatious, throw a tantrum? This digger was and did. Transports Exceptionnels, a play on words in both languages, is described as ‘a tender love duet ...
16 years ago
Playhouse Plays Out 2008
When Hollywood Came To Oxford
Kathryn
Richard Burton got the chance to come to Oxford for about 6 months in 1943. In that time he met Nevill Coghill and his love for poetry was encouraged and nurtured. In gratitude for that time at ...
16 years ago
When Hollywood Came To Oxford
Early Music by Candlelight Summer Festival 2008
Kathryn
Arrive early if you want to go to this concert of baroque music in Exeter Chapel! The chapel has limited capacity and this is a popular and very accessible collection of musical pieces. Kah-Ming Ng ...
16 years ago
Early Music by Candlelight Summer Festival 2008
Hedda Gabler
Kathryn
As you take your seats for Ibsen’s play of intrigue and social malaise a man’s portrait stares balefully down at you from a great height. This is General Gabler, the man who has obviously shaped ...
17 years ago
Hedda Gabler
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Kathryn
Many years ago I saw Joseph on the London stage and loved the songs but was disappointed by the sheer busy-ness of the production, so I was curious to see if this new production was simpler and more ...
17 years ago
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Blackbird
Kathryn
Messy room, messy lives. David Harrower’s play is about the devastating affect an affair has on two people whose story gradually unfolds before our eyes. The set is almost bare, you do not know ...
17 years ago
Blackbird
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2008
Kathryn
The 12th Oxford Literary Festival brought some 250 writers to Oxford for a week of talks and debates. On Saturday I went to hear Louis de Bernieres talking about his latest book. A gentle, funny man, ...
17 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2008
Studio Cameroon
Kathryn
Tucked down a little corridor beside the toilets in the Pitt Rivers Museum is an enchanting little collection of 39 black and white photographs taken by Jacques Touselle in the ‘70s and ‘80s, ...
17 years ago
Studio Cameroon
The Bootleg Beatles
Kathryn
Why do people go to a tribute band? For a trip down memory lane? To hear their favourite songs live? Looking round the audience tonight at the New Theatre, the majority (like myself) would have grown ...
17 years ago
The Bootleg Beatles
The Night of the Iguana
Kathryn
The Night of the Iguana is a powerful play about human relationships and how alone everyone really is, however intimate their contact. The Reverend Lawrence T. Shannon, now a tour leader, arrives in ...
17 years ago
The Night of the Iguana
Celebration
Kathryn
‘Celebration’, Pinter’s most recent play, written in 2000, is only some 50 minutes long. It seems at first to be light and funny, but violence lurks just below the surface, bubbling up in ...
17 years ago
Celebration
Woyzeck
Kathryn
Six actors with a story to tell – an anti-fairy tale – about how poverty can reduce and degrade a human being. Woyzeck is a simple soldier, with a mistress and an illegitimate child, who ...
17 years ago
Woyzeck
5 2 10 by Walker Dance Park Music
Kathryn
4 dancers, some instruments and a stage littered with bark. The dancers sweep the bark away between their set dance pieces, or shovel the bark back into the middle of the stage and then sweep again. ...
17 years ago
5 2 10 by Walker Dance Park Music
Charivari Agreable Summer Festival 2007
Kathryn
Exeter College Chapel is a wonderful setting for an evening of exquisite music by Charivari Agréable (‘pleasant tumult’). Tangos and Trios is part of a series of performances entitled Early ...
17 years ago
Charivari Agreable Summer Festival 2007
Il re pastore
Kathryn
Il re pastore – The Shepherd King – is a light opera or serenata, libretto by Metastasio, music by a teenage Mozart. The plot is slight: a shepherd, Amynta, who is in love with Elisa, discovers ...
18 years ago
Il re pastore
Molora
Kathryn
Europeans have watches, Africans have time, so the saying goes. A woman walks slowly across the stage, rolls up a piece of plastic, then starts the singing that will accompany the whole play. She is ...
18 years ago
Molora
Kindertransport
Kathryn
A few mournful notes on a mouth organ, the play begins and in just a few minutes we are thrown into a juxtaposition of past and present. On one level Kindertransport is the story of one of the 10,000 ...
18 years ago
Kindertransport
Old Times
Kathryn
Harold Pinter plays are all about words. Action and scenery are unimportant. At the Playhouse, the set is muted, a round brown, anonymous room with just enough furniture to show you that you are in a ...
18 years ago
Old Times
Notes On A Scandal [15]
Kathryn
To see or not to see, that is the question, whether it is nobler to watch a film after reading the book or to take the decision to stay away. Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished (sorry Will).A ...
18 years ago
Notes On A Scandal [15]
Tolkien [12A]
Kathryn
The film Tolkien is the story of Tolkien’s formative years. Born in 1892, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was orphaned at the age of 12 and he and his brother Hilary came under the guardianship of a ...
6 years ago
Tolkien [12A]
Leonore Piano Trio
Kathryn
The Leonore Piano Trio, named presumably after Beethoven’s Leonore overture, consists of Tim Horton (piano), Benjamin Nabarro (violin) and Gemma Rosefield (cello): all three are internationally ...
6 years ago
Leonore Piano Trio
