Reviews by Helen Smith
Dara O'Briain - Voice Of Reason
Helen Smith
I am not a great fan of Dara O Briain’s TV shows being only a peripheral flicker into Mock the Week, Robot Wars and Let’s go 8-Bit, and being one of the few people in the country who dislikes ...
7 years ago
Dara O'Briain - Voice Of Reason
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Helen Smith
With wit and wisdom Professor Atkins expounded, amongst many scientific theories, the importance of ignorance and nothingness at the centre of our understanding of our universe.
Big questions do ...
7 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2018
Macbeth
Helen Smith
Foul the evening was, certainly in terms of the weather, when hardy souls gathered for last night’s outdoor performance of the Scottish play. Support staff kindly mopped steps and handed out ...
7 years ago
Macbeth
Bonn Anniversaire
Helen Smith
From John Suchet's enthusiastic introduction, to the last resounding 29 bar sequence of fortissimo c major chords that are the finale of Beethoven'sFifth Symphony, last night's audience at the ...
8 years ago
Bonn Anniversaire
Christmas Concerto By Candlelight
Helen Smith
Christmas cheer seems in short supply this year. So in this post-truth age of uncertainty it was comforting to be welcomed into the ambient glow of Exeter College Chapel for this candlelit concert. ...
8 years ago
Christmas Concerto By Candlelight
Undermined
Helen Smith
As the miners' strike passes into history, for those of us who were there, it is interesting to see how the stories and legends surrounding the year-long bitter dispute between the NUM and the ...
8 years ago
Undermined
Alina Ibragimova
Helen Smith
Alina Ibragimova seemed a diminutive figure in black when she opened her Bach violin recital on Saturday night at the Sheldonian with Sonata for violin solo no. 1 in G minor. There were no attempts ...
8 years ago
Alina Ibragimova
Chasing the Big Bang
Helen Smith
When Oxford Town Hall was completed in 1897 it was built with the wealth of the Commonwealth and the great scientific discoveries of the Industrial Revolution based on Newtonian physics. Yet in that ...
9 years ago
Chasing the Big Bang
Robert Newman – The Brain Show
Helen Smith
Brains are fascinating organs and their function and purpose is one of the remaining mysteries of our fragile existence as it is said we do not understand fully what the majority of the human brain ...
9 years ago
Robert Newman – The Brain Show
Hackney Colliery Band
Helen Smith
No brass band marched on stage so proudly or played with such passion as the Hackney Colliery Band's performance, to a packed audience, on Friday night. The nine-piece band (2 trumpets, 2 trombones, ...
9 years ago
Hackney Colliery Band
Maud
Helen Smith
Maud is a complex poem to portray on stage. Originally described as a monodrama and comedic poem it is at once both and neither of these and last night's adaptation, written and directed by Tabitha ...
9 years ago
Maud
The Magic of The Trees at ART JERICHO
Helen Smith
In an intimate, uncluttered space in Jericho this exhibition has captured the beauty, complexity and multi-faceted symbolism of trees and nature. The gallery has brought together the work of four ...
9 years ago
The Magic of The Trees at ART JERICHO
The Cowley Road Cookbook by Martin Stott
Helen Smith
The anthropology of food is fascinating – how food is central to our lives from sustenance to celebrations and how what we eat reflects our times and tastes – and this fascination is clearly ...
9 years ago
The Cowley Road Cookbook by Martin Stott
Beauty of the Beast
Helen Smith
Last night's dance performance at the Pegasus was tantalising from top to toe with tongues included. From the gentle opening music accompanying a lone dancer, through the group dynamics of the ...
9 years ago
Beauty of the Beast
The Charles Simonyi Annual Lecture: Putting the Higgs Boson in its Place
Helen Smith
Bamboozled by the boson I attended Professor Melissa Franklin's talk as a non-scientist hoping for insight and enlightenment and came away with much more than a rudimentary understanding of ...
9 years ago
The Charles Simonyi Annual Lecture: Putting the Higgs Boson in its Place
Ruffian On the Stair
Helen Smith
Shock, outrage and amusement are what audiences have come to expect of Joe Orton’s plays and in last night’s performance of The Ruffian on the Stair, Orton’s breakthrough play, you can perceive ...
9 years ago
Ruffian On the Stair
The Oresteia
Helen Smith
Last night’s performance of the Oresteia at the Globe was a melange of a modern adaptation of ancient Greek tragedy performed in an Elizabethan theatre. This could have resulted in a chaotic mess ...
9 years ago
The Oresteia
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman
Helen Smith
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman gave the enthusiastic audience at the Cornerstone a wide-reaching and engaging tour of folk music, from rousing Elizabethan ditties, through traditional English folk ...
10 years ago
Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman
The Absence of War
Helen Smith
'Politics comes down to people' was one of the central themes of last night's performance of David Hare's The Art of War, and the cast and crew from Headlong Theatre put on a wonderful ensemble ...
10 years ago
The Absence of War
Choir Of The Queen's College
Helen Smith
Passion in all its many forms was explored during this recitation of Bach's interpretation of the Gospel of St John. Together the musical ensemble – an abridged orchestra, the choir of Queen's ...
10 years ago
Choir Of The Queen's College
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Helen Smith
Stanley Wells demonstrated a far-reaching knowledge of Shakespeare and Shakespearean actors during his presentation of his new book Great Shakespeare Actors: Burbage to Branagh. His talk was not a ...
10 years ago
Oxford Literary Festival 2015
Henry V
Helen Smith
“Once more unto the breach” went Abingdon's Drama Club last night, performing Henry V to mark the 600th anniversary of the English victory against the French at Agincourt in 1415. The actors ...
10 years ago
Henry V
Josie Long: Cara Josephine
Helen Smith
Life-affirming comedy was not what I expected from Josie Long's stand-up but her observational humour is imbued with optimism and refreshingly does not depend on criticising, humiliating or ...
10 years ago
Josie Long: Cara Josephine
Marco's New York Italian
Helen Smith
Marco Pierre White's cooking ranges from the sublime (he was the youngest ever chef to be awarded three Michelin stars) to the ridiculous (his stock-cube ads) and I feared my meal on Wednesday at his ...
10 years ago
Marco's New York Italian
John Lill (piano) at SJE Arts
Helen Smith
John Lill's renown and reputation as one of the finest pianists performing today is righteously earned if the recital of a wide-ranging repertoire of piano pieces at SJE Arts on Friday night is ...
10 years ago
John Lill (piano) at SJE Arts
TORCH Annual Headline Series 2014-15: Humanities and Science
Helen Smith
Maths has its own language and narrative doesn't it: E = mc2, Fermat's Theorem, Fibonacci's numbers etc? But last night as part of the TORCH Humanities and Science discussions Marcus du Sautoy argued ...
10 years ago
TORCH Annual Headline Series 2014-15: Humanities and Science
Riverdance20
Helen Smith
Strap on your dancing shoes, there's going to be a knees up as Riverdance are in town this week celebrating their 20th anniversary at the New Theatre. I put my cynicism aside – how enjoyable can a ...
10 years ago
Riverdance20
Hopelessly Devoted
Helen Smith
Hopelessly Devoted at the Pegasus Theatre on Friday night was a triumph of imagination from dramatic conception, through a great ensemble performance to the warm audience reception. Set in a women's ...
10 years ago
Hopelessly Devoted
Not About Heroes
Helen Smith
As the Great War passes beyond living memory through Not About Heroes presented by Blackeyed Theatre at the Cornerstone this week, the audience were able to glimpse the realities of this conflict and ...
10 years ago
Not About Heroes
Loch Fyne
Helen Smith
It was lovely to meet a friend for supper at Loch Fyne earlier this week. After hugs and kisses on the doorstep we were enveloped in the heady, welcoming aroma of grilling seafood and saffron ...
10 years ago
Loch Fyne
