Reviews by Alison Boulton
Waterperry Opera Festival
Alison Boulton
A perfect summer’s evening at Waterperry’s celebrated gardens began in sunshine: all bees and butterflies, ornamental ponds and heady herbaceous beds; but as the shadows lengthened, a totally ...
4 months ago
Waterperry Opera Festival
Barbican Quartet
Alison Boulton
One of the greatest pleasures of being in Oxford at the weekend is the Sunday Morning Coffee Concert Series at Holywell Music Room. Historic, elegant and timeless, it was possibly the first ...
8 months ago
Barbican Quartet
Mozart Requiem
Alison Boulton
Mozart’s glorious music filled the Sheldonian Theatre last night, thrilling a packed audience, and featuring two outstanding Oxford based musical talents: the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and ...
8 months ago
Mozart Requiem
The Aliens
Alison Boulton
Cops & Robbers’ exuberant production of Annie Baker’s prize-winning play belied its rubbish strewn set, its stinking bins, its broken-backed chairs and its back yard trespass. Set behind a coffee ...
3 years ago
The Aliens
Q&A
Alison Boulton
You can see the attraction: Catcher in the Rye has been challenged for use in US schools for its vulgar language, sexual references, blasphemy, undermining family values, moral code, encouraging of ...
6 years ago
Q&A
Oxford University Orchestra Hilary Term Concert
Alison Boulton
A packed Sheldonian Theatre was livelier than usual, as hoards of students streamed in to support the Oxford University Orchestra (OUO), and from the delight on the faces of the musicians, many of ...
6 years ago
Oxford University Orchestra Hilary Term Concert
Waiting for Gary
Alison Boulton
Award-winning writer Katie Sayer’s scintillating comedy shines and sparkles with wit and insight, captivating and delighting the audience for every moment of its 50 minutes. Agnes Pethers’ ...
6 years ago
Waiting for Gary
Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
Alison Boulton
What a wintry night to be abroad in Oxford, but how magnificent the reward for venturing out to the People’s Opera and Oxford Alternative Orchestra’s production of Eugene Onegin at St John’s ...
6 years ago
Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin
Oxford Music Festival 2019
Alison Boulton
Review of Piano Recital Final, TS Eliot Theatre, Merton College, 27th January 2019
The Oxford Music Festival is a three-week-long feast of outstanding musicianship, and last night’s final of the ...
6 years ago
Oxford Music Festival 2019
Marmen String Quartet
Alison Boulton
The prize-winning Marmen String Quartet was founded at the Royal College of Music in London in 2013. Since then, Johannes Marmen (violin), Ricky Gore (violin), Bryony Gibson-Cornish (viola) and ...
6 years ago
Marmen String Quartet
Waterperry Opera Festival
Alison Boulton
Festival Director Rebecca Meltzer’s sparkling production of Jonathan Dove’s chamber opera Mansfield Park ran the gamut of every emotion: it moved the audience to tears during the rhapsodic ...
6 years ago
Waterperry Opera Festival
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word [PG]
Alison Boulton
German film maker and practicing Catholic Wim Wenders’ documentary shows the current Pope to be both an eloquent man of words and of action. Where politicians hang back, or make cursory ...
6 years ago
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word [PG]
Oxford Festival of the Arts
Alison Boulton
Lieder Lovelies
This was an evening of balmy delight. Summer sunshine, an eager audience, musicians of global renown, and the magnificent setting of the Sheldonian gave us one of the highlights of ...
6 years ago
Oxford Festival of the Arts
Inspiring People: Jonathon Porritt
Alison Boulton
Jonathan Porritt’s 45-year-old association with the Green Party and his wider conservation odyssey including Friends of the Earth and Forum for Change has taken many twists and turns – but he ...
7 years ago
Inspiring People: Jonathon Porritt
Erik Satie: Memoirs of a Pear-shaped Life
Alison Boulton
Take a wonderful pianist, a gifted actor and a writer’s skill in weaving them together and you have a ‘theatrecital’: Meurig Bowen’s vision for the life and work of Parisian bohemian Erik ...
7 years ago
Erik Satie: Memoirs of a Pear-shaped Life
Maxwell String Quartet
Alison Boulton
As one of Scotland’s most celebrated string quartets, characterised for their commitment to collaborating with non-classical artists and other art forms, the Maxwell String Quartet were very ...
7 years ago
Maxwell String Quartet
Misha Glenny 'McMafia'
Alison Boulton
Misha Glenny’s superb account of the origins, spread, threat and political consequences of seriously organised crime makes compelling and relevant reading.
The BBC’s current hit McMafia makes ...
7 years ago
Misha Glenny 'McMafia'
La Serenissima - The Italian Job
Alison Boulton
In the 1969 crime caper,
The Italian Job, Michael Caine exclaims:
'You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off'.
On cue, La Serenissima's performance raised the roof of the ...
8 years ago
La Serenissima - The Italian Job
Paul Auster
Alison Boulton
Securing such an elusive American literary giant as Paul Auster, who has rarely appeared in the UK was a thrilling coup by the Oxford Literary Festival and attracted a large audience to the ...
8 years ago
Paul Auster
The Schubert Series II - James Lisney
Alison Boulton
Schubert's drama, intimacy and humour were brilliantly articulated by pianist James Lisney last night, as part of a celebration of the Complete Sonatas. Lisney is playing a series of four concerts, ...
8 years ago
The Schubert Series II - James Lisney
Degas to Picasso: Creating Modernism in France
Alison Boulton
There can be few more pleasurable ways to spend an hour in Oxford than visiting the Ashmolean Museum's ravishing new exhibition Degas to Picasso: Creating Modernism in France.
Its spontaneity ...
8 years ago
Degas to Picasso: Creating Modernism in France
Bettany Hughes in conversation with Peter Frankopan
Alison Boulton
As Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research, Peter Frankopan was the ideal interviewer of Bettany Hughes, an engaging historian and broadcaster who brought wit and sparkle to 'what's ...
8 years ago
Bettany Hughes in conversation with Peter Frankopan
Bach Christmas Oratorio
Alison Boulton
Christmas Eve in Oxford, surrounded by iconic architecture and a palpable sense of history is a good start, but enjoying Bach's Christmas Oratorio in the soaring setting of New College Chapel was ...
8 years ago
Bach Christmas Oratorio
The Elves and the Shoemaker
Alison Boulton
Wild Boor Ideas have hit on a great one: involve every child in the audience in magical endeavours and you will have their rapt attention for almost an hour of seasonal fun. Not only was every child ...
8 years ago
The Elves and the Shoemaker
The Double
Alison Boulton
The Double is an intriguing and ambiguous work which lends itself to multiple interpretations. The success of Richard Ayoade's recent film adaptation of Dostoevsky's original novella published in ...
8 years ago
The Double
Sleeping Beauty
Alison Boulton
The temptation with fairy tales is to ramp up the dark. This is especially so when the script is written by the Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris, whose theatre career has ...
8 years ago
Sleeping Beauty
Robinson Crusoe and the Pirate Queen
Alison Boulton
Robinson Crusoe and the Pirate Queen is a dream panto. Not only is it being performed in one of the country's most attractive theatres, but its swashbuckling fun was in evidence, even as excited ...
8 years ago
Robinson Crusoe and the Pirate Queen
American Honey [15]
Alison Boulton
Riding around America on an endless road trip, to a hip hop soundtrack with plenty of sex, drugs and partying may sound like fun – and it is, in parts. For the exuberant mag-crew of a white transit ...
8 years ago
American Honey [15]
Night Light
Alison Boulton
Mandala Theatre Company's Night Light is a bold and powerful theatrical experience, illuminated by the considerable wattage of award-winning South African writer Nadia Davids' script, Yasmin Sidhwa's ...
8 years ago
Night Light
Alexandre Tharaud Recital
Alison Boulton
According to Bach's first biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Bach's celebrated Goldberg Variations were originally composed for an insomniac patron, Count Keyselingk – the Russian Ambassador to the ...
8 years ago
Alexandre Tharaud Recital
Twelfth Night
Alison Boulton
Trinity College Gardens on a still, perfumed night was the idyllic setting of Oxford Theatre Guild's sparkling production of Twelfth Night. Oxford audiences are so blessed with student summer garden ...
8 years ago
Twelfth Night
Much Ado About Nothing
Alison Boulton
There are times when Oxford excels and this magical evening was one of them. Amid the magnificent setting of Oxford Castle Courtyard, one of Shakespeare's most accessible and life-affirming comedies ...
8 years ago
Much Ado About Nothing
Sam Mendes
Alison Boulton
Theatre and film director Sam Mendes' time as an Oxford schoolboy at Magdalen College School demonstrated a talent for cricket, but not for maths. Revisiting the school's packed Arts Festival marquee ...
8 years ago
Sam Mendes
Antigona and Me: A Rehearsed Reading
Alison Boulton
Brexit gives a new urgency and cutting edge relevance to director John Retallak's thrilling read through of Zena Forster's radical adaptation of prize winning poet, journalist and writer Kate ...
8 years ago
Antigona and Me: A Rehearsed Reading
Watership Down
Alison Boulton
The Watermill Theatre on a sunny summer evening is a bucolic scene worthy of a rabbit's most fervent daydream. Richard Adams was born in nearby Wash Common, and the unspoilt chalk downs his ...
8 years ago
Watership Down
Giffords Circus: My Beautiful Circus
Alison Boulton
Giffords Circus is a cavalcade of fun. It sweeps up everything in its path with its infectious enthusiasm, its showmanship and its breathtaking acrobatics. Always themed - this year it's Western: The ...
8 years ago
Giffords Circus: My Beautiful Circus
Our Kind of Traitor [15]
Alison Boulton
Love cheat academic Perry Makepeace (Ewan MacGregor) takes his attractive barrister girlfriend Gail Perkins (Naomie Harris) away for a romantic break in Marrakech. Already wrong-footed, vulnerable, ...
9 years ago
Our Kind of Traitor [15]
The Fairy Queen
Alison Boulton
You can scarcely move through Oxford without navigating your way through shoals of students revising or on their way to sit exams. Yet Oxford University students' Theatron Novum production of The ...
9 years ago
The Fairy Queen
Eynsham Hall
Alison Boulton
Twelve miles from Oxford, Eynsham Hall Hotel has an instant impact. No visitor can fail to be impressed by its magnificent symmetrical neo-Jacobean façade or its rolling parkland. Many of its fine ...
9 years ago
Eynsham Hall
The Fastest Clock In The Universe
Alison Boulton
'F*ck the milk of human kindness. Welcome to the abattoir.' This is a dark evening and BT's 18+ guidance is apt. It's also unmissable. Exceptionally assured direction by Alexander Hartley is combined ...
9 years ago
The Fastest Clock In The Universe
Gangsta Granny
Alison Boulton
David Walliams' exuberant adaptation of his most popular children's book does not disappoint.
11-year-old Ben (likeable Ashley Cousins) is sent to his Granny's every Friday night, so that his ...
9 years ago
Gangsta Granny
The Danish Girl [15]
Alison Boulton
The Danish Girl isn't an easy watch, and it's a long one. Director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech, Les Mis) has once more chosen an unusual individual struggle within a supportive and loving marriage. ...
9 years ago
The Danish Girl [15]
A Christmas Carol
Alison Boulton
Pegasus Theatre has served up a Christmas feast with many timely messages and much to enjoy. It's dark, compelling production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol transforms a familiar seasonal tale into a ...
9 years ago
A Christmas Carol
Adventure Film Festival 2015
Alison Boulton
Take seven films of varying length – 3 - 46 minutes – settle down, and enjoy the ride! This was an unusual and at times thrilling evening. The audience was predominantly young, and many looked ...
9 years ago
Adventure Film Festival 2015
The Three Musketeers
Alison Boulton
Alexander Dumas' swashbuckling tale was skewered with expert swordsmanship and a dash of panache. Jennifer Hurd (director and fight co-ordinator), assistant director Laura Cull and producer Caitlin ...
9 years ago
The Three Musketeers
Bach Cantatas 55, 90, 116, and 140 'Wachet auf! ruft uns die Stimme'
Alison Boulton
There are moments where Oxford delivers a double whammy so sublime, one can scarcely imagine a happier combination of circumstances. So it was at New College yesterday. Taking our seats in late ...
9 years ago
Bach Cantatas 55, 90, 116, and 140 'Wachet auf! ruft uns die Stimme'
Alice in Wonderland
Alison Boulton
Setting can add so much to a production, and the Watermill at Newbury's assured and inventive production of Alice in Wonderland was even more enjoyable for the Barbary ducks sitting by the mill race ...
9 years ago
Alice in Wonderland
Robin Hood
Alison Boulton
Chipping Norton Theatre has pulled out all the stops to create a cracker of a show this year. Song and dance, fabulous costumes, stick and sword fights, a giant inflatable ball and a shower of ...
9 years ago
Robin Hood
Brooklyn [12A]
Alison Boulton
Brooklyn is a charmer. Based on Coln Toibin's evocative novel, it tells the story of Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), a bright, unawakened Irish girl from rural Enniscorthy who leaves her widowed mother ...
9 years ago
Brooklyn [12A]
The Bogus Woman
Alison Boulton
North Wall’s decision to stage Kay Adshead’s coruscating play on asylum The Bogus Woman was a brave and timely one. Written over twenty years ago, it is even more relevant today. The risks taken ...
9 years ago
The Bogus Woman
Lecture by Sir Anthony Seldon 'Public Schools and the Great War'
Alison Boulton
Blackadder has a lot to answer for. The image of public school generals, upper class officers and scheming aristocrats having an easy war is untrue. In the centenary year of the First World War, ...
9 years ago
Lecture by Sir Anthony Seldon 'Public Schools and the Great War'
British Red Cross Lecture 2015
Alison Boulton
Terrorism is Peter Taylor’s patch, and as a veteran BBC journalist, he’s talked to a few. Talking at Corpus Christi College last night, at the invitation of the British Red Cross, Taylor saw some ...
9 years ago
British Red Cross Lecture 2015
Romeo and Juliet
Alison Boulton
Tomahawk’s production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is first a hoot – and then a tear jerker. The predominantly young audience (many from overseas) watching the play within the historic ...
9 years ago
Romeo and Juliet
Around the World in 80 Days
Alison Boulton
OUDS summer garden production is an annual treat which if setting, weather and subject matter coalesce seamlessly, can be sublime. Under the magnificent trees of St John’s College Gardens, OUDS ...
9 years ago
Around the World in 80 Days
Punk Rock
Alison Boulton
‘The function of art is to unsettle and trouble, to provoke and excite, to alarm and inspire’, playwright Simon Stephens has said. As a school boy in a Stockport single sex comprehensive, ...
9 years ago
Punk Rock
Zippo's Circus
Alison Boulton
Zippo’s Circus is like a brightly coloured tin of shiny sweets: gaudy, pleasureable and unexpected. It’s like it promises on the tin: naughty but nice. The circus tent itself is the first ...
9 years ago
Zippo's Circus
UK Green Film Festival 2015
Alison Boulton
The UK’s Green Film Festival is an annual celebration of the best in environmental film making. Two films were selected by the UPP, and the expert panel discussion afterwards provoked lively debate ...
10 years ago
UK Green Film Festival 2015
Don Q
Alison Boulton
Chipping Norton Theatre was the perfect setting for a night of wonders. Don Q is a tightrope act with a poignard thrust. It treads a fine line between rumbustious comedy, executed with great ...
10 years ago
Don Q
Live Stand-Up Comedy at the Glee Club
Alison Boulton
Glee Club is a bit like lucky dip. The setting is great, the service excellent, the ambiance enjoyable and the wrapper colourful. Whether you like what’s unwrapped on the night is personal – some ...
10 years ago
Live Stand-Up Comedy at the Glee Club
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Alison Boulton
Peter Conrad talking to the
FT’s Peter Aspden covered everything from Elvis to envy – how we loved and hated America in equal measure.
Seeing two of the greatest contemporary cultural ...
10 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Warzone + The Power Within
Alison Boulton
Pegasus Youth Theatre Companies' double bill, Warzone and The Power Within, is immensely affecting. Its thoughtful themes of how historical events and personalities impact on contemporary youth were ...
10 years ago
Warzone + The Power Within
The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase
Alison Boulton
The Watermill Theatre’s magical setting beside a willow-lined mill race, with ducks on the lawn and a still-turning waterwheel inside, is always a delight to visit. Its intimate theatre with first ...
10 years ago
The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Alison Boulton
‘It doesn’t seem dangerous at the time. It’s what we do,’ journalist Jill Leovy and award winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario agreed. Leovy’s latest book, Ghettoside: Investigating a ...
10 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Maria João Pires, Julien Brocal and Oxford Philomusica
Alison Boulton
Oxford Philomusica had a trilogy of winners last night: a programme of some of Mozart’s most celebrated works, a world famous soloist and the iconic setting of the Wren designed 1668 Sheldonian ...
10 years ago
Maria João Pires, Julien Brocal and Oxford Philomusica
War Horse Reading
Alison Boulton
Michael Morpurgo was all in red – his trademark red denim suit, red socks – even red handkerchief which he flourished several times during the performance. His novel, War Horse was well known to ...
10 years ago
War Horse Reading
The Queen's College Organ Recitals
Alison Boulton
Oxford enjoys so much cultural richness, it’s easy to become blasé about the daily events in our city. This year we have not one, but two performances of the complete organ works of JS Bach. ...
10 years ago
The Queen's College Organ Recitals
The Dumb Waiter
Alison Boulton
Pinter’s drama of menace, malice and mundanity keeps you watching, keeps you guessing, and on the barest of clues, demands you puzzle it out. Two hit-men in a bare basement are waiting for their ...
10 years ago
The Dumb Waiter
Hurry Up, Father Christmas!
Alison Boulton
Appealing to an audience of under-sixes is a challenge, one magnificently met by the Oxford Playhouse’s production Hurry Up, Father Christmas!. The Burton Taylor studio was transformed into a ...
10 years ago
Hurry Up, Father Christmas!
The Pearl
Alison Boulton
Pegasus Theatre’s wonderfully evocative production, based on John Steinbeck’s classic fable The Pearl, is a triumph of imaginative staging.
From the first salty exchanges between the ...
10 years ago
The Pearl
The Man Who Ate The Heart Of A King
Alison Boulton
William Buckland was a colourful local character, who cloaked a serious contribution to science in a reputation for eccentricity. Wearing a dodo tie, Jim Kennedy presented a warm tribute full ...
10 years ago
The Man Who Ate The Heart Of A King
Grease
Alison Boulton
Grease is the word – but it’s so much more. It’s a youth fest of looks, love and legwork and has some of the best loved songs in the business.
It’s an Everest of ...
11 years ago
Grease
Elias String Quartet
Alison Boulton
I have not heard the Elias Quartet’s previous performances of Beethoven’s String Quartets, but their programme at the Sheldonian Theatre brought the sixteen quartet cycle to a thrilling ...
11 years ago
Elias String Quartet
Rendezvous with French Cinema at the Phoenix
Alison Boulton
The Phoenix’s sell-out French Film festival culminated in zany actor/ director Albert Dupontel’s black comedy Nine Month Stretch, with Q&As afterwards. This was only the second ...
11 years ago
Rendezvous with French Cinema at the Phoenix
Rendezvous with French Cinema at the Phoenix
Alison Boulton
Four films representing some of the best and most diverse contemporary French talent are being shown at the Phoenix this week. Martin Provost's biopic of the life of celebrated feminist author ...
11 years ago
Rendezvous with French Cinema at the Phoenix
Nabucco
Alison Boulton
Verdi’s opera Nabucco does not crave attention. It commands it. It is all about power: the power to oppress, to resist, to forgive.
Against a series of spectacular sets and ...
11 years ago
Nabucco
Rendezvous with French Cinema at the Phoenix
Alison Boulton
Over the next four days, the Phoenix Cinema is screening some of the best of recent French cinema. Martin Provost's Violette, Roman Polanski's Venus in Fur, Marion Vernoux's Bright Days ...
11 years ago
Rendezvous with French Cinema at the Phoenix
The Lunchbox [PG]
Alison Boulton
The Lunchbox is visual storytelling at its best. This beautiful, poignant love story, set in contemporary, frenetic Mumbai, holds your attention from the outset. It keeps it, too. Through the ...
11 years ago
The Lunchbox [PG]
Wilde Without the Boy
Alison Boulton
Oscar Wilde was wild. He was a ballsy dude. No question. We know what he said; we know what he wrote; we know what he did. What we don’t know is how he felt. Even in the most abject ...
11 years ago
Wilde Without the Boy
All My Sons
Alison Boulton
The intimacy of the Watermill at Bagnor, near Newbury, perfectly mirrored the domestic setting of Arthur Miller’s great 1947 play, All My Sons. It is a tragedy of a man, caught in the ...
11 years ago
All My Sons
The Hilary Revue
Alison Boulton
The Oxford Revue’s current touring show, performed for the first time last night, is a joy.
George Mather’s production was witty, sharp and fresh. The five cast members’ ...
11 years ago
The Hilary Revue
Grisly Tales From Tumblewater
Alison Boulton
Evoking the dark, Dickensian, rain-drenched town of Tumblewater single-handed, with all its grim goings-on is quite a feat, but Teasel Theatre’s atmospheric production hit the fear funny bone. ...
11 years ago
Grisly Tales From Tumblewater
Ro Campbell + Roger Monkhouse + Paul Tonkinson + Ben Norris
Alison Boulton
Botley Road’s flood defences and driving rain failed to stem the tide of avid comedy fans who packed the Glee Club on Saturday night. It was an exceptional line-up of live and TV talent. ...
11 years ago
Ro Campbell + Roger Monkhouse + Paul Tonkinson + Ben Norris
Fiji Land
Alison Boulton
If you’re lucky then, once or twice, you might see a production which knocks your socks off. This is one of those.
Fiji Land has nothing to do with a tropical idyll; its ...
11 years ago
Fiji Land
I'm An Aristocrat Get Me Out Of Here
Alison Boulton
Pegasus Theatre’s cracker of a Christmas show showered us with Christmas spirit, while dazzling us with a fizzing, whizzing Gallic plot, inspired by the French Revolution.
In the third ...
11 years ago
I'm An Aristocrat Get Me Out Of Here
Ralph McTell
Alison Boulton
Ralph McTell is a master of intimacy. He gathers you in, drawing you closer to listen to his songs of passion and loss, and his wry social commentary.
His timeless songs have earned him a loyal ...
11 years ago
Ralph McTell
Of Microbes and Men
Alison Boulton
For a small game hunter, W. Ian Lipkin’s sights are set large. Global, in fact.Professor Marcus du Sautoy had to resort to a notebook to introduce Lipkin correctly, his several titles too ...
11 years ago
Of Microbes and Men
Captain Phillips [12A]
Alison Boulton
Captain Phillips is the hero of Paul Greengrass’ tense action thriller, powerfully realised by Tom Hanks, in one of the greatest roles of his career.
Billy Ray’s excellent script ...
11 years ago
Captain Phillips [12A]
Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda,and Roberto Devereux
Alison Boulton
Opera is spectacle: musically, visually, thematically. This production shot itself in the foot: Rupert Frey’s staging took place for the most part in Stygian gloom. Matthew Haskin’s ...
11 years ago
Anna Bolena, Maria Stuarda,and Roberto Devereux
Look, Stranger
Alison Boulton
In a mesmerising 21st century tribute to celebrate Benjamin Britten’s centenary, jazz singer Ruthie Culver and her sparkling ‘Utter Jazz’ quartet joined with actor Sam West to ...
11 years ago
Look, Stranger
Live Stand-Up Comedy at the Glee Club
Alison Boulton
Everything about the Glee Club beckons cheerfulness: the welcoming staff, the bright colours, the cheap drinks, the tasty food. Even the strobe lighting promises party…
And so we did. ...
11 years ago
Live Stand-Up Comedy at the Glee Club
Alice in Wonderland
Alison Boulton
‘Think you’re all grown up? Then it’s time to leap down the rabbit hole…’
And so we did, enchanted by Oxford University Dramatic Society’s (OUDS) Summer ...
11 years ago
Alice in Wonderland
Red, White & Blue
Alison Boulton
The war in Afghanistan has claimed over 400 British soldiers’ lives since 2001. The devastating effects of conflict do not end when active service ceases. According to a news report seven days ...
11 years ago
Red, White & Blue
Frost/Nixon
Alison Boulton
Verbal spats are the Oxford Union’s bread and butter. Audiences expect to see blood on the carpet. And James Fennemore and Josie Mitchell’s staging of Peter Morgan’s titanic 1977 ...
12 years ago
Frost/Nixon
Rope
Alison Boulton
Rope is about strangulation. It is both a murder weapon, and an instrument of state justice. The duality of taking life, by an individual versus a state-sanctioned act, gives Patrick ...
12 years ago
Rope
Still Life - An Audience with Henrietta Moraes
Alison Boulton
Henrietta Moraes was not given to understatement. Fuck Off Darling – her memoir – was unfinished at her death in 1999, but actor Sue MacLaine was captivated. ‘I read, and fell in ...
12 years ago
Still Life - An Audience with Henrietta Moraes
What The Dickens?
Alison Boulton
The culmination of Pegasus 50th birthday celebrations began with a Gala Evening showcasing young acting talent, cake cutting and a first performance of Pegasus’ Christmas show by ...
12 years ago
What The Dickens?
Modernism & Tribal Art at the Meller Merceux Gallery
Alison Boulton
Picasso had a lifelong fascination for tribal art. He was a keen collector, deriving both inspiration and strength from his extensive collection. Picasso admired both the austere beauty and totemic ...
12 years ago
Modernism & Tribal Art at the Meller Merceux Gallery
Happy Birthday Edward Lear: 200 Years Of Nature And Nonsense
Alison Boulton
This is a joyous celebration of a bicentenary – and Lear, its subject, the most endearing for his modesty, talent and wit. Born in 1812, the twentieth child of an artisan family from ...
12 years ago
Happy Birthday Edward Lear: 200 Years Of Nature And Nonsense
Cirque Du Ciel: ShangHi
Alison Boulton
Cirque du Ciel struck spectacle gold at the New Theatre – and it wasn’t just the energy of the Elvis-quiffed Chinese drummer keeping time.
The precision, execution and consistency of ...
12 years ago
Cirque Du Ciel: ShangHi
Live Stand-Up Comedy at the Glee Club
Alison Boulton
Glee Club is one of Oxford’s pleasures. Reasonable ticket price, good food, an extensive cocktail menu, and waitress service to small, intimate tables close to the stage make for an enjoyable ...
12 years ago
Live Stand-Up Comedy at the Glee Club
Aeneid: The Journey
Alison Boulton
There can be few more ambitious school productions – brilliantly realized on the Playhouse stage– than the world premiere of RSC Associate Joanne Pearce’s translation and ...
12 years ago
Aeneid: The Journey
The Oxford Poetry Walk
Alison Boulton
Oxford Playhouse and Live Canon theatre makers have combined – just in time for summer visitors - to produce an audio tour of Oxford, featuring some of its most iconic locations, and the poetry ...
13 years ago
The Oxford Poetry Walk
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Alison Boulton
Diana Athill and Joan Bakewell were well matched. Both are remarkable, cultured, witty women who have re-defined ageing. Put together, they fizz with vim and vigour, despite their combined age of 193 ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Alison Boulton
Tim Birkhead can charm the birds from the trees. No wonder his wonderfully illustrated talk was sold out. With the aid of video clips, photographs and a masterly ability to evoke the super-senses of ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Alison Boulton
In the vaulted, baroque setting of the Sheldonian Theatre - Chris Patten’s ‘great Roman cinema’ - two highly accomplished men reflected on the nature of achievement.
Baron Patten, ...
13 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2012
Matthew Bourne In Conversation with Lyndsey Winship
Alison Boulton
Matthew Bourne is the saviour of every reluctant ballet-goer. He feels your pain.
His background of one man shows in draughty Hackney church halls (his mother’s cuppa and ...
13 years ago
Matthew Bourne In Conversation with Lyndsey Winship
Gormenghast
Alison Boulton
Mervyn Peake’s magnificent Gothic trilogy taxes the imagination on the page – so imagine how much more difficult it is to bring his weirdly conceived characters to life on stage, ...
13 years ago
Gormenghast
Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin
Alison Boulton
If Oxford's drab winter skies are getting you down, then this superb new exhibition at the Ashmolean is certain to lift your spirits.
Howard Hodgkin's outstanding collection of Indian ...
13 years ago
Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Howard Hodgkin
Guercino: A Passion for Drawing - The Collection of Sir Dennis Mahon
Alison Boulton
This exhibition celebrates the adventurous and brilliant draughtsman Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666), known as Guercino - or 'little squinter'.
Guercino came from a humble ...
13 years ago
Guercino: A Passion for Drawing - The Collection of Sir Dennis Mahon
Noughts And Crosses
Alison Boulton
Noughts and Crosses packs a punch. And the girl gets it. Not any girl, but posho Sephy Hadley (played with increasing conviction by Emmanuella Kwenortey) , the younger daughter of the Deputy Prime ...
13 years ago
Noughts And Crosses
Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape
Alison Boulton
Claude Lorrain's Enchanted Landscape drew on classical themes, but evoked such a powerful response to nature in the painter that the poetry of his depiction of early morning or evening light has ...
13 years ago
Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape
Bang Bang Bang
Alison Boulton
When veteran director Max Stafford Clark was asked about the future of theatre, he replied: ‘I think the most significant moment of the last 15 years will be the influence of journalism’. Bang ...
13 years ago
Bang Bang Bang
Frank Gardner
Alison Boulton
Frank Gardner’s life has been profoundly affected by the Arab world, and he speaks of the rapidly changing Middle Eastern situation with an authority rare outside its borders. As the BBC’s ...
13 years ago
Frank Gardner
4.48 Psychosis
Alison Boulton
Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis is not a comfortable seat for viewing. The intimacy of the Burton Taylor forces the audience to confront meticulously dissected mental deterioration, the rage directed at ...
13 years ago
4.48 Psychosis
Out Of Occupation In Palestine
Alison Boulton
How many wars are started by children? Name one. Exactly. But many children have to live in warzones, and the environment in which those children grow to adulthood will profoundly ...
14 years ago
Out Of Occupation In Palestine
Water For Elephants [12A]
Alison Boulton
Francis (I am Legend) Lawrence's film of Sara Gruen's bestseller has it all: star actors, epic director, and an award winning trio of cinematographer, designer and costumer. It is set under the Big ...
14 years ago
Water For Elephants [12A]
My Dog Tulip [12A]
Alison Boulton
This beautifully animated, touchingly realistic tale has nothing sentimental about it. It pays tribute with humour and wit to the the transformative nature of pet owning. Much of the comedy and ...
14 years ago
My Dog Tulip [12A]
Love Loaves Baking Workshops
Alison Boulton
If the irresistible smell of baking bread in a cosy cottage kitchen just off Port Meadow doesn’t banish the dark days of winter, you’ve probably already left the country. But here in Wolvercote, ...
14 years ago
Love Loaves Baking Workshops
Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough 1921-1934
Alison Boulton
According to her biographer Hugo Vickers, American Gladys Deacon, the second wife of the 9th Duke of Marlborough (1881-1977) has remained until now a part of Blenheim Palace’s history which ...
14 years ago
Gladys Deacon, Duchess of Marlborough 1921-1934
Von Ribbentrop's Watch
Alison Boulton
Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran are prolific, highly successful television comedy writers, and it shows. Olivier award nominees, and authors of ‘Birds of a Feather’ and ‘The New ...
14 years ago
Von Ribbentrop's Watch
Howard Hodgkin: Time and Place
Alison Boulton
A traffic accident, a tortuous re-routing via High Wycombe, torrential rain and a recent fall all conspired to make Howard Hodgkin’s arrival at the Museum of Modern Art last night – some 80 ...
14 years ago
Howard Hodgkin: Time and Place
The Alchemist
Alison Boulton
The Alchemist is an extremely difficult play for directors, actors and audience alike. Ben Jonson’s 1610 language is crammed with extravagant, unfamiliar vocabulary, delivered at a frenetic pace, ...
14 years ago
The Alchemist
The Oxford Revue 2010
Alison Boulton
Was it the audience’s post- election euphoria which greeted last night’s performers? The Playhouse was the venue for 2010's showcase of university revue talent from Durham, Cambridge ...
15 years ago
The Oxford Revue 2010
Oxfringe 2010
Alison Boulton
Laine Cole’s adaptation of Paul Gallico’s Love of the Seven Dolls takes a much loved novella, understood and enjoyed by children, and updates it for an adult audience. The story is a simple one. ...
15 years ago
Oxfringe 2010
The Secret Love Life of Ophelia
Alison Boulton
This is a profoundly dissatisfying play, which teases without resolution and which adds little to our understanding of Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia – bar elaborating on the obvious theme of ...
15 years ago
The Secret Love Life of Ophelia
Paradise Lost
Alison Boulton
In his epic blank verse poem, Paradise Lost, John Milton had sought to ‘justify the ways of God to men’, and to elucidate the conflict between God’s almighty foresight and free will. Ben ...
15 years ago
Paradise Lost
Emma Kirkby & London Handel Players
Alison Boulton
As gales and tempests chased around the dome of the Sheldonian Theatre last night, those inside entered an entrancing sylvan world of 'Pastoral Symfonye', evoked by masters of the art. In an ...
15 years ago
Emma Kirkby & London Handel Players
Anima
Alison Boulton
For forty five minutes last night, a little magic was spangled among a challenging audience of children aged predominantly under ten. Danish theatre company Meridiano’s new production Anima held ...
15 years ago
Anima
How It Ended
Alison Boulton
You Need Me, a multicultural storytelling theatre company, have already caught the eye of a senior director at the National Theatre, and from the superb performance they gave at the North Wall Arts ...
15 years ago
How It Ended
Ruskin Degree Show 09
Alison Boulton
I approached this Final Degree Show as a parent, prospective buyer, and grateful owner of a Ruskin Final Show piece which has given me more pleasure than anything else I’ve bought in the last ...
15 years ago
Ruskin Degree Show 09
Hamlet
Alison Boulton
Phew! It was at quite a lick (less than 90 minutes), but despite some savage cutting – disembowelling even - the verse-speaking of this gifted, fluent cast of seven was superbly intelligent, ...
15 years ago
Hamlet
Garsington Opera 2009
Alison Boulton
It was a ‘filthy night’, as Garsington Opera’s Anthony Whitworth-Jones readily acknowledged, but the sparkling first night of Rossini’s La Cenerentola banished the British summer’s bad ...
15 years ago
Garsington Opera 2009
