Reviews by Liz Buckle
Reef
Liz Buckle
As I enter the room, I'm immediately glad I made it in time to hear Desert Mountain Tribe kick off their support performance for Reef at the O2. They clearly believe nothing says 'rock' better than a ...
8 years ago
Reef
Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense
Liz Buckle
To steal one of Bertie Wooster’s favourite plaudits, tonight’s show, Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense, was ‘tremendous!’ There was something for everyone, whether approaching the ...
9 years ago
Jeeves & Wooster in Perfect Nonsense
Dealer's Choice
Liz Buckle
After a short, loud, clamorous intro of beat heavy music, which sets Dealer's Choice firmly in the 90s, the lights go up on a split stage scene. Sweeney, the chef, sensitive, intelligent and one ...
10 years ago
Dealer's Choice
Mozart & Bruckner
Liz Buckle
I left the Sheldonian elated, enthused and somewhat exhausted after Oxford Philomusica’s performance. The concert had delivered a heady mix of drama, pomp, revelry, melancholy, passion and ...
10 years ago
Mozart & Bruckner
Maxim Vengerov & Oxford Philomusica
Liz Buckle
The Sheldonian, not unused to drawing large crowds, saw a full house for the Oxford Philomusica’s performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto in D major, Op.77, and Mendelssohn’s Symphony ...
10 years ago
Maxim Vengerov & Oxford Philomusica
Museum Hours [12A]
Liz Buckle
Museum Hours is a film about looking, seeing and appreciating – not just art as we think of it, in the form of paintings on gallery walls and objects in glass cases, but the ordinary world ...
11 years ago
Museum Hours [12A]
Lionboy
Liz Buckle
Lionboy is a story with real heart. Complicite’s production captures and expresses that heart through great writing, compelling performances, and clever effects, bursts of dramatic ...
11 years ago
Lionboy
The Sound of Music
Liz Buckle
As I walked out of the auditorium, away from the final curtain of The Sound of Music at the New Theatre, an enthusiastic voice behind me piped up cheerily ‘That was really great!’. ...
11 years ago
The Sound of Music
Oxford Gospel Choir
Liz Buckle
It took a good few minutes for the full eighty or so members of the Oxford Gospel Choir to file onto the stage. They came in clapping and swaying enthusiastically along to the music, dressed in black ...
11 years ago
Oxford Gospel Choir
Starlight Express
Liz Buckle
Love or hate Andrew Lloyd Webber, the literally millions of keen musical goers who have packed theatres for decades to see a show he’s had a hand in, are surely a testament to the undeniable ...
11 years ago
Starlight Express
Ladies in Lavender
Liz Buckle
It’s no small challenge to take on roles that have been made famous by the likes of Dames Judy Dench and Maggie Smith, but it’s testament to some wonderful acting by the leads, ...
12 years ago
Ladies in Lavender
Dangerous Liaisons
Liz Buckle
I admit it. I have generally steered clear of student productions, particularly of anything as well known and previously so popularly well received as Dangerous Liaisons, for fear of having to write ...
12 years ago
Dangerous Liaisons
WNO Autumn Season 2011
Liz Buckle
Upon taking our seats and casting a first look at the stage, it is clear that what we will witness will be a work of great magnitude. The stage is surrounded by towering walls of cast metal, the ...
12 years ago
WNO Autumn Season 2011
Voices of Macmillan
Liz Buckle
By definition, a gala concert is a festive occasion, a celebration and a public entertainment –and in all these aspects the Voices of Macmillan centenary performances met the criteria. For anyone ...
12 years ago
Voices of Macmillan
The Golden Dragon
Liz Buckle
The Golden Dragon is a Thai/Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant, located in an unnamed street, in an unidentified city, somewhere very far from the homes of all of the workers within. It is the central ...
13 years ago
The Golden Dragon
Hardeep Singh Kohli
Liz Buckle
No typical curry night for us on Thursday at the North Wall. We, the audience, the good folk of ‘North Oxford, Bohemian Oxford’, as Hardeep repeatedly referred to us, with a gently ...
13 years ago
Hardeep Singh Kohli
The Tree Of Life [12A]
Liz Buckle
Read as many reviews as you like about this film, listen to a hundred assessments and opinions, but I would still challenge any viewer to leave the cinema after witnessing this epic, mystifying, ...
13 years ago
The Tree Of Life [12A]
Bunny
Liz Buckle
It’s great to know that there is real young talent out there in theatre land , or fringe land, or wherever land this impressive, thought provoking, moving, funny and original bit of drama does ...
13 years ago
Bunny
A Man, A Magic, A Music
Liz Buckle
Majestic Movin’ Melvin took me and the small but hugely appreciative audience on a journey, not only through America’s black music history, but also his personal experiences, leading us from ...
13 years ago
A Man, A Magic, A Music
The Sorcerer
Liz Buckle
From the opening scene, almost before a word was spoken, and well before anyone had burst into song, it was clear that this was going to be an entertaining, jolly show. The musicians, neatly tucked ...
13 years ago
The Sorcerer
How To Climb Mount Everest
Liz Buckle
The show, How to Climb Mount Everest, might alternatively have been called ‘How to put on a funny, inventive, novel, engaging and playful hour of entertainment’, for that is what the slightly ...
13 years ago
How To Climb Mount Everest
Mammuth [15]
Liz Buckle
In the opening scenes of Mammuth, the audience is thrust, face first, into a slaughterhouse, brought eye to eye with pig carcasses being hauled, hurled, sawed and sliced up. Follow this with a ...
13 years ago
Mammuth [15]
Midnight Tango
Liz Buckle
I am no dance aficionado, and really couldn’t hold up my score cards or call ‘Sev-en’ with any authority if asked to assess the technical quality of the performances by any of the dancers in ...
13 years ago
Midnight Tango
Humble Boy
Liz Buckle
I won’t be sleeping fitfully whilst my mind works to extrapolate the deeper meanings of the plot of Humble Boy, and I will not need to expend too much mental energy attempting to understand the ...
13 years ago
Humble Boy
After the Accident
Liz Buckle
As I exit After the Accident, whilst lingering momentarily in the foyer area of the North Wall Theatre, I overhear a quite remarkable and bemusing thing. A fellow audience member comments, I assume ...
13 years ago
After the Accident
The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band Album Launch
Liz Buckle
The Jericho Tavern’s Saturday night offering was an eclectic feast of Oxford’s finest, delivering a raucous night of punk, jazz, folk, rockabilly, surf and Memphis blues fun. Inflatable Buddha ...
13 years ago
The Original Rabbit Foot Spasm Band Album Launch
Venus & Adonis
Liz Buckle
Friday night's trip to the opera was an evening full of pleasant firsts and surprises. As a lover of opera but an infrequent audience member (opera is not something everyone can afford on a regular ...
13 years ago
Venus & Adonis
A Town Called Panic [PG]
Liz Buckle
Unless you happen to be friends with a French speaking child prodigy who has been allowed to drink way too much sunshine-yellow enhanced orange squash and let loose with their set of plastic dolls ...
14 years ago
A Town Called Panic [PG]
Iron Man 2 [12A]
Liz Buckle
Q: Is it too clichéd to call this movie explosive? A: Not when it’s the most accurate description to use. The action comes in spades but it’s more than just enormous fireballs and thunderous, ...
14 years ago
Iron Man 2 [12A]
Oxford May Music Festival 2010
Liz Buckle
I arrived at the Holywell Music Room with very few expectations for the evening’s entertainment, being no more than a fan of good singing and a willing guinea pig for most musical experiences. I am ...
14 years ago
Oxford May Music Festival 2010
Kick-Ass [15]
Liz Buckle
Kick Ass was brilliant! Incredibly violent in quite a shocking and unexpected way (even though someone had already warned me that there was no holding back on the brutality and blood lust), laugh out ...
14 years ago
Kick-Ass [15]
Alice In Wonderland [PG]
Liz Buckle
I really enjoyed this film and whilst I can see how a die hard Alice snob would baulk at the dramatic departure from the text, that departure is so Burtonesquely brilliant and filled with its own ...
14 years ago
Alice In Wonderland [PG]
