Reviews by Francesca Ramsay
Edinburgh Comedy Previews: Alexander Fox & Daniel Nils Roberts
Francesca Ramsay
The Library’s Edinburgh Comedy Preview was a rare chance to see comedy in the making, with mistakes included and before the final polish. Alexander Fox’s show, playing the character of ‘the ...
6 years ago
Edinburgh Comedy Previews: Alexander Fox & Daniel Nils Roberts
Russian State Ballet of Siberia
Francesca Ramsay
It’s the classic conundrum - you bring a boy home, your mum doesn’t approve. She wants you to hook up with the childish idiot because she fancies his dad and it takes a hell of a lot of ...
6 years ago
Russian State Ballet of Siberia
Our Carnal Hearts
Francesca Ramsay
Well how could I resist a ticket, given the name of the play? A sermon on the very failures that make us human, Our Carnal Hearts plays upon all of our horrible and horribly universal jealousies, ...
6 years ago
Our Carnal Hearts
How the Earth Made Us with Lewis Dartnell
Francesca Ramsay
Lewis Dartnell can see the bigger picture. And my, it sure is big! Invited by Science Oxford to lecture on his new book Origins - How the Earth Made Us, Professor Lewis Dartnell took us on a ...
6 years ago
How the Earth Made Us with Lewis Dartnell
The Spin Jazz Club
Francesca Ramsay
Henry Spencer's Juncture - Thursday 13th Dec 2018 Downstairs at the Wheatsheaf, you know what to expect - long haired rockers, multiple piercings in places you didn’t know could even be pierced ...
6 years ago
The Spin Jazz Club
Peter Broderick + Douglas Dare
Francesca Ramsay
Irregular Folks have teamed up with The Listening Room from the wonderful Arts at the Old Fire Station to produce this evening's inspired pairing. It is a specially curated music night that gives us ...
6 years ago
Peter Broderick + Douglas Dare
Little Red, Kiva, A Different Thread
Francesca Ramsay
The eclectic nature of Gappy Tooth Industry’s monthly music night at the Wheatsheaf was made clear to me right at the beginning with their lucky dip CD bag at the door. My plus one and I were lucky ...
7 years ago
Little Red, Kiva, A Different Thread
Jericho Comedy and Friends
Francesca Ramsay
As I said to compere Alex Farrow before the show, this isn’t the first time I’ve been to a Jericho Comedy night, and sometimes I even pay for it. It wasn’t quite the compliment I meant to give, ...
7 years ago
Jericho Comedy and Friends
Jericho Comedy
Francesca Ramsay
Many things were funny that evening, and not just because I’d accidently got two hours sleep the night before and was so delirious with tiredness that I was almost at the point of not understanding ...
7 years ago
Jericho Comedy
Twelfth Night
Francesca Ramsay
Oh how we’ve all experienced unrequited love. Something so admirable about Shakespeare’s words is their ability to resonate with audiences four hundred years later. We’re the same lovelorn, ...
7 years ago
Twelfth Night
Romeo and Juliet
Francesca Ramsay
I have been fortunate enough in life so far to have only experienced the gruelling tragedies of life through artistic means rather than personal. And who does tragedy like Shakespeare? The absolute ...
7 years ago
Romeo and Juliet
Mistero
Francesca Ramsay
I hadn't realised the whole thing would be in Italian. Slightly slow of me perhaps, seeing as the title Mistero! is in Italian, and the performance was advertised as the 'Oxford Italian Play 2017', ...
8 years ago
Mistero
Tank
Francesca Ramsay
I've seen many things in my twenty seven years, thanks to the number of interesting individuals I have been fortunate enough to meet, and the accidental internet searches I have succumbed myself to. ...
8 years ago
Tank
Ash Lewis, Bless This Mess, Jae, Laz Cunliffe
Francesca Ramsay
There's nothing that makes you feel quite so old as ordering a baked camembert at a night of noisy Portuguese boys singing about how great it is to be young. Gosh, I think, how times have ...
8 years ago
Ash Lewis, Bless This Mess, Jae, Laz Cunliffe
Remnants
Francesca Ramsay
Erratica's Remnants is a deeply moving performance set around the atrocities of the wars fought in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the 20th century. Using movement, voice-over and music, the performance ...
8 years ago
Remnants
Martin Harley and Daniel Kimbro
Francesca Ramsay
Martin Harley's Money Don't Matter (2005) was the soundtrack to my first relationship. I was worried this personal experience of his music could colour my review of this evening. However I found ...
8 years ago
Martin Harley and Daniel Kimbro
Valery Gergiev
Francesca Ramsay
I don't watch sport, but I imagine the intensity and involvement one
feels as an audience member of a classical concert is the same as
watching football. As a spectator, doing literally ...
8 years ago
Valery Gergiev
Croft & Pearce Are Not Themselves
Francesca Ramsay
Funny women. You are a joy to me. A loud reminder that to be a woman can combined intelligence, brashness and the manipulation of one's body into the grotesque or the bizarre, rather than into ...
8 years ago
Croft & Pearce Are Not Themselves
Krapp's Last Tape and Rockaby
Francesca Ramsay
There is a man, pale, shaved head, gaunt and haunted sat behind a desk
with a ledger and a tape recorder. He stares from his seat, subduing
the audience into silence as they enter. Beckett's ...
8 years ago
Krapp's Last Tape and Rockaby
Mr B - The Gentleman Rhymer
Francesca Ramsay
What struck me most about Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer was his crowd;
many were dapper and mustachioed, vanilla Steampunk. I felt out of
place. As if I'd accidentally found myself in an Evanescence ...
8 years ago
Mr B - The Gentleman Rhymer
Aida
Francesca Ramsay
Picture this: the Pharoah's daughter, Amneris (Liza Kadelnik/Zarui
Vardanean), fancies Radames (Giorgio Meladze/Vitalii Liskovetskiy) - a dashing wannabe leader with great legs. He is having a ...
8 years ago
Aida
The Anti-Slam
Francesca Ramsay
It is not often that I am given the chance to attend a night with the objective of, in the words of the hosts, 'venerating verbal diarrhea'. At least, not intentionally. The brainchild of Tina ...
8 years ago
The Anti-Slam
Oxford Revue Valentine’s Special
Francesca Ramsay
Last year I spent Valentine's night watching Bridget Jones with my dad. It was not, as I'm sure you can imagine, top of my list of chosen Valentine's activities, nor his I'm sure. Neither of us has ...
8 years ago
Oxford Revue Valentine’s Special
