Reviews by Nathalie Francis
Catweazle Club
Nathalie Francis
Catweazle is the kind of event that you can go to only once in your life, or go once a week, and it will be unique and special no matter what. The strong scent of incense hits you as you enter the ...
9 years ago
Catweazle Club
Dancin' Oxford Festival
Nathalie Francis
Choreographed by Wayne McGregor for Random Dance, Atomos mixes dance with stunning lighting, sound and video. Since 2000 Random Dance have worked with researchers investigating creativity in dance, ...
9 years ago
Dancin' Oxford Festival
ReFashion Oxford
Nathalie Francis
ReFashion Oxford returned to the Town Hall for its third year of sustainable fashion celebration with up-cycling, customising, crafting and swishing. The event is well organised, with plenty of ...
9 years ago
ReFashion Oxford
Macbeth
Nathalie Francis
This production of Macbeth by Filter Theatre is a smartly crafted piece of theatre that still has the playfulness and experimentation of a rehearsal room. Scenes are spliced together ingeniously ...
9 years ago
Macbeth
The Oxford Kitchen
Nathalie Francis
It can be quite easy when living in Oxford to stick to your favourite safe restaurants, know what you’re getting and not risk some of the smarter establishments, thinking they are probably not ...
10 years ago
The Oxford Kitchen
Secret Theatre
Nathalie Francis
In 2013 London’s Lyric Theatre closed for a redevelopment. During this time the Artistic Director, Sean Holmes, decided to create an ensemble of actors, directors, designers and writers to try ...
10 years ago
Secret Theatre
Twelfth Night
Nathalie Francis
The English Repertory Theatre is making a splash in their first outing to the Oxford Castle this summer with the well-chosen Shakespearean comedy, Twelfth Night.
In this familiar story of ...
10 years ago
Twelfth Night
STAND
Nathalie Francis
STAND is a unique piece of theatre about and for the Oxford community. As the latest in the Playhouse Plays Out scheme it was sensibly staged in the West Oxford Community Association on Botley Road. ...
10 years ago
STAND
Taberu
Nathalie Francis
If, like me, your main experience of sushi is a tiny, unfulfilling Tesco lunch pack then, you ain't tasted nothing yet. Taberu is tucked away between G&Ds and Atmoic Burger on some prime ...
10 years ago
Taberu
Bryony Kimmings: Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model
Nathalie Francis
Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model sees Bryony Kimmings, the dinosaur, and her 10-year-old niece Taylor, the faun, go on a journey to create the pop star palaeontologist Catherine Bennett. ...
10 years ago
Bryony Kimmings: Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model
Robin Hood
Nathalie Francis
Bonkers, bizarre and brilliant – the Oxford Playhouse’s pantomime is a fun-filled and action-packed show.
I particularly enjoyed the way this year’s pantomime was imbued with ...
10 years ago
Robin Hood
The Adventures of Pinocchio
Nathalie Francis
Pinocchio is probably best known as the 1940 Disney animation, but the new adaptation of The Adventures of Pinocchio at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury takes the story back to its Italian roots, ...
10 years ago
The Adventures of Pinocchio
Jack and the Giant
Nathalie Francis
This year’s Chipping Norton pantomime Jack & The Giant is a delightful take on the British fairy-tale, Jack & The Beanstalk. It’s a very traditional show, with a classic pantomime ...
10 years ago
Jack and the Giant
Dracula
Nathalie Francis
For a contemporary dance piece, Marc Bruce Company’s Dracula is very faithful to Bram Stoker’s epistolary, fragmented novel. With vampires being such sexual, animalistic and mystic ...
10 years ago
Dracula
West Side Story
Nathalie Francis
West Side Story is the show to see should you want to marvel at young musical theatre performers working their hardest, an orchestra playing their best and an iconic choreography executed with ...
11 years ago
West Side Story
Gathering Festival
Nathalie Francis
Multi-venue festivals are not new to Oxford, as proven by annual favourites Oxjam and Oxford Punt. Next month we will also see the first Oxford City Festival (bringing together the best of ...
11 years ago
Gathering Festival
1984
Nathalie Francis
Headlong’s production of 1984 begins with a book club discussing the various clichés and themes we associate with George Orwell’s influential story – one about a dystopian ...
11 years ago
1984
Blood Brothers
Nathalie Francis
If you like Eastenders then you will love Blood Brothers. At a certain point some booming drumbeats even sounded almost like those iconic opening bars in the theme tune to the (disputably) best ...
11 years ago
Blood Brothers
That Is All You Need To Know
Nathalie Francis
There is something so fitting about the story of Bletchley Park being performed as a piece of theatre – with all that we can use to piece together its history being the spoken records and ...
11 years ago
That Is All You Need To Know
Beyond The Veil
Nathalie Francis
Mikron Theatre have been touring theatre along the waterways for over 42 years on a 77 year old boat, Tyseley. For both a small-scale theatre company and a narrowboat their endurance is quite a feat, ...
11 years ago
Beyond The Veil
The White Rabbit
Nathalie Francis
Though the pub's name is evidently taken from Alice in Wonderland, it's quite refreshing for Oxford to have a modern city centre bar which doesn't market itself based on being a ...
11 years ago
The White Rabbit
Finding Libby
Nathalie Francis
Meet Pauline, a woman so prudish she can’t even bring herself to utter the word ‘toilet’ for all the lewdness it entails. She’s not like how a woman named Pauline should be, ...
11 years ago
Finding Libby
Bicycle Boy
Nathalie Francis
Oxford Playhouse Plays Out is a fantastic venture bringing audiences out of the theatre and over to surprising locations across Oxford. Around this time last year they were honouring Roger ...
11 years ago
Bicycle Boy
England Street
Nathalie Francis
Kenneth Emson's England Street, a modern drama exploring race in Britain, was written in 2011 as part of Bike Shed Theatre's script-writing competition on the theme of cultural integration. ...
11 years ago
England Street
Curiosity Shop
Nathalie Francis
Theatre Alibi’s The Curiosity Shop is a completely stand-alone adaptation. Dickens’ classic work of fiction is brought up to date and made into a compelling show, whether or not you have ...
11 years ago
Curiosity Shop
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Nathalie Francis
Launched recently at Women of the World festival at the South Bank Centre in London, 50 Shades of Feminism is a new collection of essays written by women “who think, who act, who ...
11 years ago
Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival 2013
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2013
Nathalie Francis
Jasmin Varidmon's Freedom featured flawless dancing which interacted with an imaginative set and clever projection, but it did not sweep me away.
You can't fault the movement itself. The ...
11 years ago
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2013
Machinal
Nathalie Francis
The final year Oxford School of Drama students perform the obscure late 1920s expressionist play about the mechanical, systemised nature of life.
The story of Helen Jones is inspired by the life ...
11 years ago
Machinal
