Reviews by Helen Ward
A Girl In A Car With A Man
Helen Ward
A Girl in a Car with a Man opens with a series of flickering black and white CCTV images projected onto a backdrop of TV screens. We are quickly drawn into a mysterious encounter ...
7 years ago
A Girl In A Car With A Man
Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions
Helen Ward
The aim of Imagining the Divine is to “show how the exchange of ideas and objects in the first millennium influence our thinking about the Divine today”. In fact, it’s a bit of disappointment ...
7 years ago
Imagining the Divine: Art and the Rise of World Religions
The Murderer
Helen Ward
A suspenseful opening – the woman we will later know as The Murder enters her house and does or does not commit murder. In the row behind me, someone laughs – is ...
7 years ago
The Murderer
Raphael: The Drawings
Helen Ward
Raphael: the Drawings is advertised as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Well, it's certainly that, with loans from a range of international sources joining the Ashmolean's not inconsiderable ...
7 years ago
Raphael: The Drawings
Avenue Q
Helen Ward
Boy arrives in New York, boy meets monster, boy falls for monster, boy dumps monster after being seduced by sleazy night club singer (Lucy the Slut). The boy in question is Princeton, a ...
7 years ago
Avenue Q
Christie in Love
Helen Ward
Howard Brenton's Christie in Love is based around the real-life mass murderer John Reginald Christie (1899-1953), familiar to many from the film 10 Rillington Place. Rather than giving a narrative ...
8 years ago
Christie in Love
Dear Brutus
Helen Ward
What would have happened if only I'd taken that job when I had the chance - or married that person instead of this one? These are the intriguing questions explored in J.M. Barrie's Dear Brutus which ...
8 years ago
Dear Brutus
Undead Shakespeare: The Writer Who Can't be Killed
Helen Ward
The New Oxford Shakespeare is a monumental production by any measure and on Wednesday an audience of Bard buffs got a glimpse of the painstaking work that has gone into its making when they had the ...
8 years ago
Undead Shakespeare: The Writer Who Can't be Killed
Kubo and the Two Strings [PG]
Helen Ward
“If you must blink – do it now" … because otherwise you might miss one glorious microsecond of this magical film. Kubo and the Two Strings opens with baby Kubo and his mother being washed up, ...
8 years ago
Kubo and the Two Strings [PG]
Pigeons by Martin Pevsner
Helen Ward
What is Cowley Road? Is it 'bustling, cheeky, vibrant', a glorious oasis of easy-going multi-culturalism or an area ill at ease with itself where you're constantly having to watch your back? Pigeons ...
8 years ago
Pigeons by Martin Pevsner
A Tale of Two Cities
Helen Ward
There was anticipation and trepidation in equal measure at last night's opening of A Tale of Two Cities at Oxford Playhouse. Would Dickens' masterly story of love and sacrifice set against the ...
8 years ago
A Tale of Two Cities
Print, Project, Collect
Helen Ward
Print, Project, Collect is a new venture by the Pitt Rivers Museum which aims to give members of the public a taste of the museum's extensive photographic collection and an insight into how ...
8 years ago
Print, Project, Collect
King Lear
Helen Ward
On the one hand, there's an ageing monarch and a Britain that is about to be split into three (do stop me if you've heard this one) – on the other, two families who are so dysfunctional that it's ...
9 years ago
King Lear
The Herbal Bed
Helen Ward
Is it always a sin to tell a lie?
The Herbal Bed attempts to answer this question as well as exploring contemporary concerns around personal privacy. I would say that it gives an unconvincing answer ...
9 years ago
The Herbal Bed
Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Collection
Helen Ward
It's difficult to talk about Andy Warhol's work without a chronic over-use of the word “iconic" and that's certainly true of the exhibition of works from the Hall Collection currently showing at ...
9 years ago
Andy Warhol: Works from the Hall Collection
The Indivisible Present
Helen Ward
The theme of The Indivisible Present is time – slowed down, sped up and frozen. In the case of the first exhibit – a mesmerising film of 30 million year old insects trapped in amber – it seemed ...
9 years ago
The Indivisible Present
Scenes of Last Tokyo: Japanese Creative Prints from 1945
Helen Ward
“Scenes of Last Tokyo" is advertised as an exercise in nostalgia, but is there more to it? It struck me as an odd and slightly unsettling mix of tradition and modernity emerging at an odd and ...
9 years ago
Scenes of Last Tokyo: Japanese Creative Prints from 1945
Suffragette [12A]
Helen Ward
Suffragette is a well-structured drama with high production values and good, solid performances from a strong cast. It is also an intensely problematic film.
The plot revolves around the ...
9 years ago
Suffragette [12A]
An Elegant Society: Adam Buck, Artist in the Age of Jane Austen
Helen Ward
I was pleasantly surprised by this exhibition of works by late 18th century portraitist and miniaturist Adam Buck.
The work is in mixed media including pencil, water-colour, etchings and print, ...
9 years ago
An Elegant Society: Adam Buck, Artist in the Age of Jane Austen
Inside Out [U]
Helen Ward
Inside Out is an ambitious and complicated film which falls flat on its face, unfortunately, without the involvement of a banana skin or similar comedic device to relieve the tedium.
I had great ...
9 years ago
Inside Out [U]
Yoshida Hiroshi: A Japanese Artist in India
Helen Ward
Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) was, as one of my fellow visitors put it, “a Japanese bloke wot went to India”. Whilst he was there, Hiroshi travelled widely and made a series of wood block prints ...
9 years ago
Yoshida Hiroshi: A Japanese Artist in India
Mermaid
Helen Ward
Mermaid – a reworking of Hans Andersen's fairytale – is a powerful and beautifully executed piece of theatre, let down by a weak ending. The underlying theme, as with the original, is “be ...
10 years ago
Mermaid
John Healy
Helen Ward
John Healy, ex-street drinker turned chess enthusiast, was the guest writer at Blackwell’s “Author Event” last Friday.
His story is extraordinary - growing up as the son of ...
10 years ago
John Healy
Troupers
Helen Ward
Entertaining frontline troops in wartime is a familiar concept, but as the audience at Oxford Science Park's Sadler Building discovered last night, it only dates back to 1915. Troupers is ...
10 years ago
Troupers
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
Helen Ward
I first came across medical ethicist Professor Donna Dickenson at the 2012 Literary Festival and quickly added her to my list of favourite science communicators. I was delighted, therefore, to be ...
11 years ago
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
Helen Ward
Have you ever wondered why your left leg is the same length as your right leg? This was just one of the intriguing questions posed by Jamie Davies, Professor of Experimental Anatomy at Edinburgh ...
11 years ago
FT Weekend: Oxford Literary Festival
A Still Life
Helen Ward
Daily Info reviewer Helen Ward gives her thoughts on local writer Martin Pevsner's latest novel A Still Life, and interviews the author about the ideas behind the book.
A Still Life, ...
11 years ago
A Still Life
Crystals: Beauty, Science, Structure
Helen Ward
A crystal ball might seem a bit out of place in a science exhibition, but don't worry: the Museum of the History of Science hasn't gone over to the dark side, they're just reminding us ...
11 years ago
Crystals: Beauty, Science, Structure
A Star-spangled Christmas
Helen Ward
A Star-Spangled Christmas was this year’s seasonal offering from the City of Oxford Choir in the historic (even by Oxford standards) setting of the University Church last Saturday.
Arranging ...
11 years ago
A Star-spangled Christmas
Hidden Spire
Helen Ward
Time is running out for Calvin’s clock shop and unless someone comes up with an idea by this time tomorrow it looks as if it’s going to join thousands of others on Britain’s ...
11 years ago
Hidden Spire
Beyond The Veil
Helen Ward
As Scene of Crime Officers swarm over the dead beekeeper's body, it quickly becomes clear that Thistledale Allotment has experienced its first murder and that, in the eyes of DCI Mark Starkey, ...
11 years ago
Beyond The Veil
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Helen Ward
'Our Words' was probably one of the best kept secrets of this year’s Sunday Times Literary Festival, outdone only by the mystery of the missing tent and the exact location of the tea ...
12 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Helen Ward
Little science, less sex and a lot of serendipity were on the menu when science historian Patricia Fara spoke to a packed Blue Boar Lecture Theatre on Thursday afternoon (The Blue Boar is the least ...
12 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Helen Ward
What is a book for? To be read, obviously; but also to be used. The theme of Christopher de Hamel’s talk about the development of the Bible (arguably the world’s ultimate book) was the ...
12 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Helen Ward
Our world is awash with data. On a typical day, there are 400 million Tweets, Google processes 24 petabytes of data (a petabyte is a lot) and smart phones transmit constant streams of data about ...
12 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Helen Ward
'What makes you cry?' I’ve been asking my friends this question since finishing Michael Tremble’s new book, Why Humans Like to Cry. And why exactly do we cry? It’s clearly a ...
12 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
New Beginnings
Helen Ward
It’s your first day in the Sixth Form at your new (and very posh) school and your mum turns up in the middle of the day with a Buzz Lightyear lunchbox. This is the probably the low point for ...
12 years ago
New Beginnings
Another Country
Helen Ward
At the beginning of Another Country, Guy Bennett is a just another English public schoolboy with a sense of entitlement hoping to join the school’s elite Twenty-Two society in his next step ...
12 years ago
Another Country
Quartet [12A]
Helen Ward
Quartet is billed as a comedy/ drama, which is part of a new cinematic movement to depict older people as fully rounded individuals with the same emotional needs as the rest of the human race. ...
12 years ago
Quartet [12A]
Café from Crisis
Helen Ward
All my friends say the same things about the Crisis Skylight Café – “I didn’t know this was here” and “This is amazing! - I’ll have to tell people about ...
12 years ago
Café from Crisis
Double Edge
Helen Ward
Actor Sam Ward doesn’t know how close he came to being thumped during the opening performance of Double Edge. His performance as a the predatory creep who keeps returning to terrorise the girl ...
12 years ago
Double Edge
Skyfall [12A]
Helen Ward
Somebody (British Intelligence) has left a list of every single secret agent in the Western world on a laptop in a block of flats in Istanbul. Somebody else breaks in and pinches the hard disc. Could ...
12 years ago
Skyfall [12A]
Vagrant
Helen Ward
When someone stops you in the street and asks for the price of a cup of tea, do you give them money, even if you think it’s going towards the price of the next fix of heroin or crack? Do you ...
12 years ago
Vagrant
Threads Of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles From Meiji Japan
Helen Ward
Dragons, peacocks, lions, monkeys, ducks and even sparrows have descended on the Ashmolean for Threads of Silk and Gold – an exhibition of ornamental Japanese textiles form the Meiji period ...
12 years ago
Threads Of Silk and Gold: Ornamental Textiles From Meiji Japan
The Subtle Thief Of Youth
Helen Ward
You would have thought that the scenario of a couple of bodies turning up in a sleepy Cotswold village had been done to – erm - death, but in The Subtle Thief of Youth, Oxfordshire author DJ ...
12 years ago
The Subtle Thief Of Youth
Can you keep a secret?
Helen Ward
The Mikron Theatre Company’s Can You Keep a Secret? opens with Bain, a destitute Yorkshireman, begging on the streets of London. He remembers the Luddite rebellion of 20 years ago and the ...
12 years ago
Can you keep a secret?
Ice Age 4: Continental Drift [U]
Helen Ward
Oh dear. The first three Ice Age films are full of creative visual humour backed up by clear storylines and sharp dialogue. Ice Age 4 is a cross between Pirates of the Caribbean (another tired ...
12 years ago
Ice Age 4: Continental Drift [U]
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Helen Ward
“What’s the recipe for success?” is the question on the mind, if not the lips of any aspiring writer who finds themselves in the middle of a literary festival. One local school may ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Helen Ward
Bettany Hughes appeared at the Oxford Literary Festival on Saturday as part of the St Hilda’s College Day to talk about her most recent book, The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens and the Search ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Helen Ward
“Know your enemy” declared a headline in New Scientist’s recent “God” issue. The enemy in question is of course religion, which, as everyone knows, is at war with ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Helen Ward
Famous women scientists are as rare as famous Belgians. Few have had a more curious rise to fame than Rosalind Franklin.
At the time of her death, aged 37, in 1958 Rosalind Franklin was unknown ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Helen Ward
Were the riots of summer 2011 just a spontaneous outbreak of lawlessness or a sign of underlying disaffection? Tottenham MP David Lammy, speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival on Saturday ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
OUDS New Writing Festival 2012
Helen Ward
The first offering from finalists in this year’s OUDS New Writing Festival was Antarctica by Rob Williams, who’s studying Classics and English at Balliol.
The play opens with husband ...
13 years ago
OUDS New Writing Festival 2012
Sensual Africa
Helen Ward
“Astonishing”, “amazing” and “stunning” were just some of the words buzzing through the audience at the end of Tavaziva Dance’s performance of Sensual Africa ...
13 years ago
Sensual Africa
Wit
Helen Ward
Vivien Bearing is a 50 year old academic who has dedicated her life to the study of the 17th century metaphysical poets. As the play opens, she is sitting on her hospital bed, her hair lost to the ...
13 years ago
Wit
The Artist [PG]
Helen Ward
The film opens with silent screen heartthrob George Valentin (the artist) at the zenith of his career, whilst girl-next-door Peppy Miller is just another face in the crowd. Enter the villain of the ...
13 years ago
The Artist [PG]
Cultural Revolution: State Graphics in China in the 1960s and 1970s
Helen Ward
“Long live the triumph of Chairman Mao’s revolutionary line for literature and arts!” is the not exactly snappy title of one of the posters featured in a small exhibition of officially ...
13 years ago
Cultural Revolution: State Graphics in China in the 1960s and 1970s
A Habit of Dying
Helen Ward
By day Lydia Silverstream is a mild-mannered local government officer in Oxfordshire County Council’s Payroll Section. By night she is a family history enthusiast and, when she finds what looks ...
14 years ago
A Habit of Dying
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2011
Helen Ward
“Who is the greatest: Agatha Christie or Dorothy L Sayers?” This was the question debated by PD James and Jill Paton Walsh on Saturday before a packed marquee of murder buffs, with James ...
14 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2011
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2011
Helen Ward
A small but knowledgeable audience gathered in the Blue Boar Lecture Theatre on Friday evening to hear award-winning mystery writer Anne Cleeves talk about her latest creation, DI Vera Stanhope of ...
14 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2011
Divinity Road
Helen Ward
Daily Info interviewer Helen Ward spoke to Martin about the book, life as a writer, past influences and future plans. HW: Before settling in Oxford, you worked and travelled extensively in ...
14 years ago
Divinity Road
A Low Pitched Hum by Christopher Bevis White
Helen Ward
A Low-Pitched Hum is the first fiction offering from Oxfordshire author Christopher Bevis White.It begins well enough with a possible attempted murder at a garden centre before moving into the main ...
14 years ago
A Low Pitched Hum by Christopher Bevis White
Lucien Pissarro In England: The Eragny Press 1895 – 1914
Helen Ward
This is a delightful exhibition whether you are interested in the technicalities of bookmaking or just enjoy looking at beautiful things. In many ways, Lucien Pissarro’s work is the very ...
14 years ago
Lucien Pissarro In England: The Eragny Press 1895 – 1914
The King's Speech [12A]
Helen Ward
“There was a time when all a king had to do was look respectable in a uniform and not fall off his horse”, says George V (Michael Gambon). But in the age of the newsreel and the wireless, kings ...
14 years ago
The King's Speech [12A]
Cherwell School Christmas Concert 2010
Helen Ward
Young musicians and singers from Cherwell School got Christmas off to a rousing start on Monday evening with a concert of music and seasonal readings held in St Andrew’s church in North Oxford. ...
14 years ago
Cherwell School Christmas Concert 2010
Annie's Tea Room
Helen Ward
My first visit to Annie’s Tea Room at Thrupp came as a welcome break during a Sunday afternoon walk along the Oxford Canal.The choice of food is simple and unfussy. On the day that I went, there ...
14 years ago
Annie's Tea Room
What Would Helen Mirren Do?
Helen Ward
There was a distinct buzz of anticipation at the Burton Taylor Studio last night as the (mainly female) audience settled into their seats for the one woman show What Would Helen Mirren Do? They were ...
15 years ago
What Would Helen Mirren Do?
Divine Comedy
Helen Ward
With a cast of 65 and a script combining the life of St Thérèse of Lisieux (currently touring the UK) with elements of Dante’s Divine Comedy and a medieval mystery play, this was an ambitious ...
15 years ago
Divine Comedy
Dr Faustus
Helen Ward
Dr Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (the man who wasn’t Shakespeare) is the tale of a Renaissance scholar who rejects philosophy, law and medicine, curses God and signs a pact with the Devil. What ...
15 years ago
Dr Faustus
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Helen Ward
“Of making many books there is no end” (Eccl. 12:12, AV) – or is there? This was the question posed by Lucy Atkins of the The Sunday Times to fellow journalist Brian Appleyard, Chris Meade of ...
16 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Helen Ward
On Monday evening an Oxford audience was treated to a poem about bugs. Blame it on Darwin. The Darwin in question on this occasion was Ruth Padel, prize winning poet and direct descendent of Charles ...
16 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2009
Can Any Mother Help Me?
Helen Ward
Can Any Mother Help Me? opens in a 1930s world of teacups and Vim where young mothers exchange childcare tips in the pages of “Nursery World”. From this unlikely background comes the Cooperative ...
16 years ago
Can Any Mother Help Me?
S1L3NC3
Helen Ward
One of the ironies of our 24x7 world is that whilst the absence of noise is the stuff of dreams, the sound of silence is the stuff of nightmares. S1L3NC3 (not his real name), who performed for a ...
16 years ago
S1L3NC3
Buzzing!
Helen Ward
Oxford Playhouse was certainly buzzing on Friday when it was taken over by poet and creepy-crawly enthusiast Anneliese Emmans Dean. Billed as an eco-edutainment with a tenuous link to the Darwin ...
16 years ago
Buzzing!
Changeling [15]
Helen Ward
The year is 1928. When Christine Collins’ 9 year old son Walter vanishes from their home in suburban Los Angeles, normality crumbles around her. After months of anguish, hope is restored when ...
16 years ago
Changeling [15]
Planet Earth
Helen Ward
Planet Earth is a showcase for the not inconsiderable talent of children and young people from Oxford and beyond who are bound together by their love of performance. With one exception, all the ...
16 years ago
Planet Earth
2012
Helen Ward
The world is going to end on 21st December 2012. In this well-paced and engaging one-man show, Bill Aitchison explores the world of the conspiracy theory in which nothing, and no one, is quite what ...
16 years ago
2012
Ghost Town [12A]
Helen Ward
The phrase “get a life” was invented for New York dentist Bertram Pincus (Ricky Gervais).After something goes wrong with a routine surgical procedure, the pathologically anti-social Pincus’s ...
16 years ago
Ghost Town [12A]
The Duchess [12A]
Helen Ward
“The Duchess” is visually stunning to the point of distraction. The sets, costumes and manners are straight out of the “BBC meets the National Trust” school of period drama; some scenes are ...
16 years ago
The Duchess [12A]
Kung Fu Panda [PG]
Helen Ward
Po the Panda spends his days working in his dad’s noodle bar and his nights dreaming of being a Kung Fu hero. His dreams start to come improbably true when he is revealed to be none other than the ...
16 years ago
Kung Fu Panda [PG]
Wall-E [U]
Helen Ward
The human race has fouled up again and the Earth is covered not in flood water but a sea of junk. In space, humanity has been preserved on an upmarket ark (shopping malls, beauty parlours and ...
16 years ago
Wall-E [U]
Mamma Mia [PG]
Helen Ward
They say that it’s a wise child that knows its father which must make Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) the smartest kid in town: she’s got three of them. And, since she’s getting hitched, she’s ...
16 years ago
Mamma Mia [PG]
The Mummy 3 [12A]
Helen Ward
An ancient Hollywood legend tells of script-writers who made up the story of a film as it was being shot. The result was one of the greatest films of all time: Casablanca.The makers of this film give ...
16 years ago
The Mummy 3 [12A]
