Reviews by Yunnan Chen
The Magic Toyshop
Yunnan Chen
Despite its whimsical name, this coming-of-age story by Angela Carter is far from the twee-sounding fantasy the title conjures. Fifteen-year-old Melanie puts on her mother’s wedding dress once ...
15 years ago
The Magic Toyshop
The Bloody Chamber
Yunnan Chen
Angela Carter has enjoyed a good run in Oxford student theatre this term, with the lavish success of the musical Nights at the Circus earlier this year, and now an adaptation of her short story The ...
15 years ago
The Bloody Chamber
Peach Boy: The Adventures of Momotaro
Yunnan Chen
Touring over the festive season, Oxfordshire Theatre Company brings a captivating and visually brilliant production of Peach Boy, a musical and a magical play. Based on a popular Japanese folk tale, ...
15 years ago
Peach Boy: The Adventures of Momotaro
Dido And Aeneas
Yunnan Chen
This is a lavish, visually pleasing retelling of Purcell’s opera of the tragic tale of doomed lovers Dido and Aeneas. It is a well-known tale from the Aeneid of the blooming romance between ...
16 years ago
Dido And Aeneas
Uncivil Partnership
Yunnan Chen
Given its title, Uncivil Partnership does not take much to guess what the play is about. The complications of a lesbian wedding with two clashing personalities descends into chaos in the elegant ...
16 years ago
Uncivil Partnership
Circle Line
Yunnan Chen
New must-see writing is on this week at Wadham’s Moser Theatre: Circle Line, by Tom Costello, might be cheesily taglined ‘love on the London Underground’, but it is much more than that; and ...
16 years ago
Circle Line
The Importance of Being Earnest
Yunnan Chen
Set in the mysterious cloisters made famous by Draco’s Ferret Scene in Harry Potter, The Importance of Being Earnest is a home-grown production by New College MCR, hosted in the New College ...
16 years ago
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Oxford Revue 2009: Renegade
Yunnan Chen
For one night only (this year at least), the Oxford Playhouse played host to three giants of collegiate comedy: the Oxford Revue and Friends, the Durham Revue and Cambridge Footlights, all coming ...
16 years ago
The Oxford Revue 2009: Renegade
Foy Vance and Iain Archer
Yunnan Chen
A rich sense of Irish bonhomie filled Saturday night at the Jericho tavern, which played host to two talented artists, both Northern Irish compatriots, and in their own words, ‘good mates’. First ...
16 years ago
Foy Vance and Iain Archer
The Oxford Revue 2009: Renegade
Yunnan Chen
The world feels amusingly surreal after leaving tonight’s performance of The Oxford Revue. Renegade is a compilation of their greatest hits of the past year and meaty chunks of new ...
16 years ago
The Oxford Revue 2009: Renegade
The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be
Yunnan Chen
Tucked away in the relative anonymity of the Michael Pilch Theatre, off Mansfield Road, The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be is a clever and humorously innovative one-act play. Written by second ...
16 years ago
The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be
Don Juan in Soho
Yunnan Chen
Written by Patrick Marber of Closer fame, Don Juan in Soho paints the ageless story of the licentious Lothario in a contemporary setting, playing out the character’s decadent games of hedonism and ...
16 years ago
Don Juan in Soho
The Masked Canterbury Tales
Yunnan Chen
It’s difficult to know exactly what the production were trying to achieve through this rather bravely unconventional single-act play. As a short, amusing, experimental piece of theatre, it provides ...
17 years ago
The Masked Canterbury Tales
Sense & Sensibility
Yunnan Chen
Based on the classic Jane Austen novel, which already has a plethora of film and TV adaptations, I had some initial reservations on Brian McMahon’s Sense and Sensibility, curious to see how the ...
17 years ago
Sense & Sensibility
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Yunnan Chen
I watched this play, to start with, with mixed feelings. First off, I’d advise anyone who sees it to have a working knowledge of Hamlet’s synopsis at least – there’s no real need to have ...
17 years ago
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Volpone
Yunnan Chen
Ok, I confess it. I know nothing about Ben Jonson. The scope of my literary knowledge of that era does not go beyond GCSE poetry and thinly sliced chunks of Shakespeare. But thirty minutes into ...
17 years ago
Volpone
