Reviews by Alwyn Collinson
Henry VI
Alwyn Collinson
There’s no denying it: Shakespeare is intimidating. The archaic (if beautiful) language and the plots that send you scrabbling for your synopsis are standard. Good on the Globe on Tour, then, ...
11 years ago
Henry VI
Edinburgh Fringe 2013
Alwyn Collinson
BLAM!
What do you get when you cross The Office with The Matrix? Or Wall-E? Or Scarface, Wolverine, Die Hard? BLAM! Four bored office workers share a fantasy world of pop-culture theatrics and ...
11 years ago
Edinburgh Fringe 2013
James and the Giant Peach
Alwyn Collinson
There’s an endearing streak of nastiness in the works of Roald Dahl, which is, I think, what gives them their timeless appeal. Forget The Water Babies or flower fairies, what children really ...
11 years ago
James and the Giant Peach
Maometto Secondo
Alwyn Collinson
What can you say about Garsington Opera? It’s stunning, obviously. World-class opera in beautiful surroundings is only the beginning. Stepping onto the Wormsley Estate to see Maometto Secondo ...
11 years ago
Maometto Secondo
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Alwyn Collinson
What do you do when you discover your godfather was a Nazi, perhaps a war criminal? In Mary Fulbrook’s case, you write a book about it.
Fulbrook, whose mother was a refugee from Nazi ...
12 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Oxfringe Festival 2012
Alwyn Collinson
The other day, I was in the supermarket, on the bus, under a bridge, having sex, when this humorous anecdote really, honestly, genuinely occurred. Or occurred to me. Delete as applicable. ...
13 years ago
Oxfringe Festival 2012
Don Giovanni
Alwyn Collinson
The British delight in celebrating old glories - perhaps because, in these dark & uncertain days, past triumphs are the only thing we can really rely upon. The same impulse that leads to frenzied ...
13 years ago
Don Giovanni
Dance Around The Gallows
Alwyn Collinson
The hemp fandango. The Tyburn jig. The sisal two-step. These charming expressions describe the dance-like jerking of a hanged man’s legs as the dying brain sends a last, desperate signal down the ...
13 years ago
Dance Around The Gallows
Rory & Tim will Never Sell Out
Alwyn Collinson
Before I begin the review proper, I would like to complain about false advertising: the show I attended was definitely sold out. Furthermore, although clearly advertised as being a two-man show, an ...
13 years ago
Rory & Tim will Never Sell Out
An Inspector Calls
Alwyn Collinson
"An inspector calls". The words have a ring of old-world gentility, conjuring up cosy Edwardian dining rooms and set texts in musty classrooms. A play that was once defiantly, almost violently ...
13 years ago
An Inspector Calls
Jubilate!
Alwyn Collinson
I’m always a little wary of one-person shows. At their best, they let a solo performer shine, demonstrating the breadth of their talent in an intimate, personal setting. At worst, you’re trapped ...
13 years ago
Jubilate!
Burns' Night
Alwyn Collinson
The 25th of January is the birthday of Robert Burns, Scotland's national poet, author of Auld Lang Syne, the man who said “The best laid plans of mice and men…" and gave us a good excuse for an ...
14 years ago
Burns' Night
Sweeney Todd
Alwyn Collinson
As I cycled down the chill North Oxford streets, a freezing fog descended about my bicycle. All sound and light seemed to come from a great distance, and the glow of the streetlights flickered, ...
14 years ago
Sweeney Todd
WNO Autumn Season 2010
Alwyn Collinson
As the curtain rose, it looked like the New Theatre had forgotten to install its backdrops, leaving the grimy innards of backstage shockingly visible. To expose tender opera-lovers to the botox that ...
14 years ago
WNO Autumn Season 2010
The Pillowman
Alwyn Collinson
Once upon a time, in a totalitarian dictatorship not so very far away from here, there lived a writer of children’s stories. Sitting in a police cell, blindfolded and afraid, he awaits the arrival ...
14 years ago
The Pillowman
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Alwyn Collinson
The Invisible Atom, Hill Street Theatre, 9pmThis is a confusing, complex play, expanding in scope from the physics of subatomic particles to a critique of global capitalism just as the central ...
14 years ago
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Alwyn Collinson
Six actors. Two shows. One venue. More sketches than I can count.The Penny Dreadfuls and Pappy's (or the sketch group formerly known as Pappy's Fun Club, if you've seen them in years past) appear in ...
14 years ago
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Alwyn Collinson
Daily Info @ The Fringe...Seated in a dank vault* and being verbally assaulted by a Kentish nail technician-cum-astronaut was not what I expected from the notoriously fluffy Josie Long. Better known ...
14 years ago
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
John Illsley Interview
Alwyn Collinson
So, you’re having a swanky birthday party, with a live band, and a tipsy friend gets up on stage and starts playing in the background. What do you do?Well, when you’re singer-songwriter Greg ...
14 years ago
John Illsley Interview
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Alwyn Collinson
Oh, it's that Most Wonderful Time of the Year again, when every aspiring thesp, comic, street performer and associated vagrant treks north to the fair city of Edinburgh. The rest of the country ...
14 years ago
Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Walking Tour: Eccentric Oxford
Alwyn Collinson
Do you know where Tony Blair smoked his last cigarette? Or what are the three telltale signs of an Oxford prostitute? Or how you can get an Oxford degree without sitting a single exam? Neither did I, ...
14 years ago
Walking Tour: Eccentric Oxford
The Cape of Good Hope
Alwyn Collinson
I have to confess I was a little suspicious of the new management of the Cape- solely because they call us “Dialy Info” on their otherwise-excellent website. Fortunately, I am a professional with ...
14 years ago
The Cape of Good Hope
Oxford Pride 2010
Alwyn Collinson
Topping and Butch are right: All of Lily Allen’s songs are about her not-so-repressed hatred of men. Prince Phillip thinks he’s being funny when he’s just fucking rude. And Starburst really ...
15 years ago
Oxford Pride 2010
Salome
Alwyn Collinson
I entered the Playhouse to see a bare stage, lit by ranks of floodlights. Dirty, dangerous-looking men, half-clad in camouflage gear and carrying AK-47s, strut about like posturing child soldiers in ...
15 years ago
Salome
Dracula
Alwyn Collinson
As I entered the (appropriately gloomy) confines of the OFS, an usher handed me a slip of paper warning me of strong language and scenes of an explicit nature throughout the production. The stage ...
15 years ago
Dracula
Artweeks 2010
Alwyn Collinson
Oxford excels at unexpected triumphs; who would have thought that one eccentric aristocrat’s book collection would become one of the largest libraries in the world? Who would have thought that a ...
15 years ago
Artweeks 2010
Visiting Oxford - Things to See and Do
Alwyn Collinson
In order to thoroughly experience Oxford, you have to embrace both sides of the city: Town and Gown. The University tends (unsurprisingly) to dominate guidebooks, but you’re missing out if you just ...
15 years ago
Visiting Oxford - Things to See and Do
Hedda Gabler
Alwyn Collinson
It’s not often that Oxford gets a touch of Bond-girl glamour in its theatre, but with Rosamund Pike, Robert Glenister and Tim McInnerny sharing a stage, you could tell that Hedda Gabler was going ...
15 years ago
Hedda Gabler
St. Patrick's Day
Alwyn Collinson
When?
Saint Patrick's day is the 17th March.
What?
St. Patrick's Day is the feast day for St. Patrick, a national holiday for Ireland, an opportunity to celebrate Irish culture for ...
15 years ago
St. Patrick's Day
Torpids
Alwyn Collinson
WHAT IS TORPIDS?
Torpids is one of the two “bumps” rowing races held in Oxford each year (the other being
Summer Eights). Bumps is a Darwinian struggle for survival, where crews of eight ...
15 years ago
Torpids
IMPerium
Alwyn Collinson
If you've ever been to one of the Imp's performances before, you'll know the usual drill: a handful of shouted suggestions from the audience inspires a series of improvised sketches; these become ...
15 years ago
IMPerium
Crave
Alwyn Collinson
Sarah Kane is an interesting and troubling figure; a young playwright of real promise, as famous for the startling brutality of her themes and language as for her depression, mental illness and ...
15 years ago
Crave
Maxwell's
Alwyn Collinson
Please don’t read this review. In fact, I’d advise you to navigate away from this page straight away. Why not read our suggestions for things to do in a day out in Oxford instead? If you must ...
15 years ago
Maxwell's
Jay Fai (previously Thai Orchid)
Alwyn Collinson
Stepping inside Thai Orchid is a disorientating and exhilarating experience. The dark windows (mostly blocked by pieces of Oriental statuary) isolate you from dreary St. Clements and the interior ...
15 years ago
Jay Fai (previously Thai Orchid)
My Fair Lady
Alwyn Collinson
Reviewing a musical as well known as My Fair Lady, it's terribly tempting just to fall back on the cheap gags and nostalgia. It's even more tempting for a director to do the same, relying on fond ...
15 years ago
My Fair Lady
WNO's Autumn Season 2009
Alwyn Collinson
The Welsh National Opera’s all-star production of La Traviata opened on a bleak note: sobbing strings follow the gaunt figure of the lovelorn Alfredo across the stage, red petals dropping from his ...
15 years ago
WNO's Autumn Season 2009
Nights at the Circus
Alwyn Collinson
Fevvers is the Cockney Venus, a winged beauty left on the doorstep of a brothel, prepared to take the 20th century by storm as the star turn of Colonel Kearney’s circus. Jack Walser is an Icelandic ...
15 years ago
Nights at the Circus
Byron And Shelley
Alwyn Collinson
Twilight has a lot to answer for. Whatever you think of its literary merits, bloodsuckers have taken a firm hold on our collective imagination. When a serious-faced figure in Georgian costume ...
15 years ago
Byron And Shelley
Radcliffe Arms
Alwyn Collinson
The Radcliffe Arms is now under new management. We look forward to reading future reviews.
15 years ago
Radcliffe Arms
