Reviews by Sophia Holme
The Trinity Players present The Great Gatsby
Sophia Holme
The Trinity Players run of The Great Gatsby, staged in the Trinity College garden, sold out before its opening night. Having seen it, the success feels much deserved. An elaborate production from a ...
3 months ago
The Trinity Players present The Great Gatsby
The Eras Experience: Taylor Swift by Xenna
Sophia Holme
To say the crowd skewed young at The Eras Experience by Xenna - a popular Taylor Swift tribute act who performed at Cornerstone Arts Centre last Friday - is an understatement. The vast majority of ...
4 months ago
The Eras Experience: Taylor Swift by Xenna
Macbeth
Sophia Holme
Macbeth may be one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays, but an 80-minute adaptation that still captures its rich themes and wild-eyed emotion sounds impossible. And yet, that’s exactly what Out of ...
4 months ago
Macbeth
NOW That's What I Call A Musical
Sophia Holme
If you grew up in the UK, you likely have some memory of the NOW That's What I Call Music compilation tapes and CDs. Even growing up overseas, the brand's blocky font is instantly recognisable to me. ...
6 months ago
NOW That's What I Call A Musical
Chicago
Sophia Holme
Chicago, the bombastic musical about jazz, murder, and fame-at-all-costs in 1920s Illnois, has arrived at the New Theatre for the week. The plot in a nutshell, is this: sisters Velma and Veronica ...
7 months ago
Chicago
Oxford’s Next Hot Spud
Sophia Holme
Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of attending the Oxfordshire Drag Collective’s yearly competition, 'Oxford's Next Hot SPUD’. Eight acts competed for the title during a varied and highly ...
7 months ago
Oxford’s Next Hot Spud
Be My Cabaret
Sophia Holme
After being well-received last February, Be My Cabaret - a mix of song, sketch, drag and clowning - returned with fresh acts, running for two nights over last weekend, produced again by Justine ...
7 months ago
Be My Cabaret
Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat
Sophia Holme
Before seeing Director Laurence Connor’s touring West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the New Theatre earlier this week, I read that the show was so popular with ...
8 months ago
Joseph & The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat
War Horse
Sophia Holme
There is a weight of expectation on this revival of War Horse, widely regarded as the National Theatre’s most successful play. Since its debut in 2007, the show - and its intricate equine puppetry ...
9 months ago
War Horse
Dear Evan Hansen
Sophia Holme
It’s been almost ten years since Olivier, Tony and Grammy winning musical Dear Evan Hansen first hit the stage, and arguably its themes of mental illness, social media, and teenage loneliness more ...
10 months ago
Dear Evan Hansen
The Watsons
Sophia Holme
Ronin Theatre is a local Oxford theatre company whose selection of productions - typically adventurous, playful, and bold - is shepherded by one central principle: all works must have been written in ...
11 months ago
The Watsons
Straddle: a fantasia on gay rage
Sophia Holme
When I went to see Straddle: a fantasia on gay rage at the Camden Fringe last month, I was expecting something relentlessly, vividly punk. Partly due to the subtitle, partly due to the flamboyant, ...
11 months ago
Straddle: a fantasia on gay rage
Grease
Sophia Holme
With a touring production of the West End revival of Grease currently hand-jiving the week away in the New Theatre, I can hear you saying tell me more. Let’s kick off with a summary of the plot, ...
12 months ago
Grease
OFFBEAT Festival
Sophia Holme
Simply sensational
As part of Offbeat Festival, I was lucky enough to catch I’ll Be Back, a new hour-long solo show at from Justine Malone, at the Old Fire Station a couple of weeks ago. Like the ...
12 months ago
OFFBEAT Festival
& Juliet
Sophia Holme
I have developed a pet peeve for noticeably contrived musicals; 80s films that have been coldly and mechanically revised into flashy West End shows then marched out on tour can more often than not ...
a year ago
& Juliet
Chess the Musical
Sophia Holme
When the Musical Youth Company of Oxford originally envisioned performing Chess the Musical, which they presented on the Oxford Playhouse mainstage earlier this August, things looked a little bit ...
a year ago
Chess the Musical
Hamlet
Sophia Holme
Siege Theatre closes out the Oxford Castle and Prison’s wonderful Summer Shakespeare - a trio of companies bringing the Bard to their picturesque courtyard - with a pacy and sombre take on Hamlet. ...
a year ago
Hamlet
As You Like It
Sophia Holme
This Summer has been a triumph of Shakespeare al fresco. From multiple Much Ados’ in Uni Parks and Worcester College Garden, to the three companies bringing four plays to life at Oxford Castle and ...
a year ago
As You Like It
OxPHWOARd Pride 2024
Sophia Holme
OxPHWOARd, the drag and cabaret arm of (T)Art Productions, kept the Pride going last Friday night with their latest show at the Old Fire Station. This show, which featured five performers plus long ...
a year ago
OxPHWOARd Pride 2024
Oxford Comedy Festival 2024
Sophia Holme
The comedy festival continues it's glorious pre-Edinburgh run, and on Friday night, I caught two refreshingly blunt acts - Ola Labib and Marise Gaughan. Labib, who performed first, was on the first ...
a year ago
Oxford Comedy Festival 2024
Oxford Comedy Festival 2024
Sophia Holme
Oxford Comedy Festival is in full swing, and I went to see two acts last Friday night at Trinity College Bar to join in on the fun. Performing that evening were Caitriona Dowden, with her show ...
a year ago
Oxford Comedy Festival 2024
Twelfth Night
Sophia Holme
Oxford Castle and Prison’s Summer Shakespeare continues with Wild Goose Theatre’s irresistibly charming production of Twelfth Night, which runs until the 27th. The company is no stranger to ...
a year ago
Twelfth Night
The Odyssiad
Sophia Holme
If I had to choose one word to define The Odyssiad, MCS Drama’s 2024 Summer offering, it would be ambitious. The company is no stranger to an epic work, having presented a well-received production ...
a year ago
The Odyssiad
Queer Fest
Sophia Holme
I,Victor I, Victor lifts its body-reassembling concept from Frankenstein, but the resemblances largely end there, and that's for the best. Issy Flowers' piece of new writing is wholly fresh and ...
a year ago
Queer Fest
Romeo & Juliet and Troilus & Cressida
Sophia Holme
BMH Productions, who kick off Oxford Castle and Prison’s annual Summer Shakespeare season this week with Troilus and Cressida and Romeo and Juliet, continue their tradition of producing one hour ...
a year ago
Romeo & Juliet and Troilus & Cressida
An Officer and a Gentleman The Musical
Sophia Holme
From 9 to 5 to Pretty Woman to Back to the Future, musical stage adaptations of the 80s biggest films have been in steady supply for over a decade, adding fresh songs to classic stories with varying ...
a year ago
An Officer and a Gentleman The Musical
The Kite Runner
Sophia Holme
The 2007 play The Kite Runner, a dutifully faithful adaptation of the bestselling novel by Khaled Hosseini, is back on a UK tour, stopping in at the Playhouse this week. To call it an epic tale would ...
a year ago
The Kite Runner
Come From Away
Sophia Holme
Come From Away, the feel-good Canadian musical touring the UK, landed at the New Theatre last week. The plot follows the true story of the small Newfoundland town of Gander on 9/11. The town became a ...
a year ago
Come From Away
Boy Out The City
Sophia Holme
Declan Bennett’s one-man show, Boy Out The City, chronicles his fraught yet cathartic period of isolation during the first year of COVID, interspersed with anecdotes about growing up gay and ...
a year ago
Boy Out The City
The Importance Of Being Earnest
Sophia Holme
When The Importance of Being Earnest was first staged in 1885, Oscar Wilde’s popularity was undeniable. This witty, romantic farce, subtitled ‘A Trivial Comedy for Serious People’ was instantly ...
a year ago
The Importance Of Being Earnest
Six Figure Success
Sophia Holme
Last week, I attended Six Figure Success at the Old Fire Station, ostensibly a training conference for the top sellers of Douche Industries’ (it’s pronounced ‘doo-shay’, after the company’s ...
a year ago
Six Figure Success
Macbeth
Sophia Holme
Macbeth, Shakespeare’s ‘Scottish play’ is a short, sharp tragedy all about the dark side of ambition. While the murder and manipulation is lacquered in a menacing, supernatural sheen. It's the ...
a year ago
Macbeth
The Drifters Girl
Sophia Holme
The Drifters Girl, the 2021 musical, is now on its UK tour and has swung by the New Theatre this week. It is framed around Faye Treadwell, who managed The Drifters alongside her husband George (Miles ...
a year ago
The Drifters Girl
Creation Theatre Presents: Boatman Town
Sophia Holme
Creation Theatre is known - and loved - in Oxford for its ambitious, ornate, site-specific productions, usually adaptations of classic texts. It’s rare for them to stage a production in an actual ...
2 years ago
Creation Theatre Presents: Boatman Town
Oxford’s Next Hot SPUD
Sophia Holme
Last Friday, I had the great joy of attending The Oxfordshire Drag Collective’s competition 'Oxford's Next Hot SPUD’, in which 11 acts competed for the title across a varied and highly ...
2 years ago
Oxford’s Next Hot SPUD
A Christmas Carol
Sophia Holme
At times, it can feel as though theatre companies choose to perform old favourites as safe bets. It makes sense on paper: what is more tried and true than the mainstays of Shakespeare’s folio, the ...
2 years ago
A Christmas Carol
Macbeth
Sophia Holme
Macbeth, Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, is beaded throughout with some of his most quoted lines, from ‘....something wicked this way comes’ to ‘out, damned spot!’ to ‘tomorrow and ...
2 years ago
Macbeth
Pretty Woman The Musical
Sophia Holme
While there are many romcoms whose plot points or gender dynamics have soured somewhat over time in the eyes of their viewers, few seem as low-hanging fruit as Pretty Woman. The film romanticises a ...
2 years ago
Pretty Woman The Musical
Goldilocks and the Three Bears a pantomime by Tom Whalley
Sophia Holme
First, a confession: being from Canada, I had never seen a pantomime before last night, when I headed to Dorchester Village Hall for a production of Tom Whalley’s Goldilocks and the Three Bears. ...
2 years ago
Goldilocks and the Three Bears a pantomime by Tom Whalley
Milked
Sophia Holme
Milked, a two-and-a-half hander written in 2013 by playwright Simon Longman, is revived here by Matchbox Productions. I say and a half because the third role is that of an ailing cow, non-speaking ...
2 years ago
Milked
The Bodyguard
Sophia Holme
The Bodyguard: The Musical, which stops at the New Theatre this week, is a blend of two genres that require their audiences to suspend disbelief more than most: a jukebox musical and a romantic ...
2 years ago
The Bodyguard
Young Marx
Sophia Holme
After seeing Young Marx, the latest offering from the acclaimed local troupe Ronin Theatre, this past Wednesday, I was surprised to find it had debuted in 2017. The script, written by Richard Bean ...
2 years ago
Young Marx
Constellations by Nick Payne
Sophia Holme
Constellations, Nick Payne’s acclaimed parallel universe romcom/tragedy/drama, premiered in 2012. Eleven years and many many productions later, our cultural obsession with multiverses has only ...
2 years ago
Constellations by Nick Payne
Spooky Tours
Sophia Holme
Last Friday night, I headed out after dark, to enjoy the new Oxford Castle and Prison ghost tour, which is on until Halloween. What I found left me impressed, as well as chilled. At the beginning of ...
2 years ago
Spooky Tours
Sluts With Consoles
Sophia Holme
Fittingly, the framing device for Sluts with Consoles is a series of video game levels. The play from Dogmouth Theatre, which made a stop at the Old Fire Station last Saturday, takes a thoughtful ...
2 years ago
Sluts With Consoles
Crick Crack Club presents The Magician's Apprentice
Sophia Holme
I’ve long heard rave reviews for The Crick Crack Club. For more than 35 years, the live storytelling events have been lighting up venues in London, Bristol, Dorset and, yes, Oxford, where they have ...
2 years ago
Crick Crack Club presents The Magician's Apprentice
Hauntings
Sophia Holme
Hauntings is a trio of richly performed ghost stories - two by E.F. Benson, and one by M.R. James. In the snug black box studio of the Burton Taylor, the full focus is on the sparse set - a plush ...
2 years ago
Hauntings
Identities
Sophia Holme
Identities, Close to Home’s show that toured to the Burton Taylor Studio this week, explores the experience of breast cancer from the perspective of the breasts themselves, played by Rae Bell and ...
2 years ago
Identities
Can't See For Looking
Sophia Holme
Can’t See For Looking, which is on at the Old Fire Station this week, follows Rosa, a young Filipina domestic worker who signs on to her uncle’s agency, excited to become a nanny overseas. She ...
2 years ago
Can't See For Looking
Murder in The Dark
Sophia Holme
Murder in the Dark, a spooky new play written by Torben Betts and produced by Original Theatre, is on at the Oxford Playhouse this week. I went along on opening night, hoping to be scared. New ...
2 years ago
Murder in The Dark
A Trio of Tennessee Williams
Sophia Holme
Last week, I went to Burton Taylor Studio to see Fox and Hound Theatre’s A Trio of Tennessee Williams, which collected three of his lesser-known and even less-performed works, for an intriguing ...
2 years ago
A Trio of Tennessee Williams
Helen Bauer: Grand Supreme Darling Princess
Sophia Holme
Helen Bauer's material is both defined and bolstered by her brash, crass and energetic delivery. In her new show Grand Supreme Darling Princess, which toured to the Old Fire Station for one night ...
2 years ago
Helen Bauer: Grand Supreme Darling Princess
Amendments: A Play On Words
Sophia Holme
Amendments is a two character play about Kenneth, a put upon Senior HR Rep, who must have an awkward conversation with John, an employee who has engaged in some inappropriate conduct toward a fellow ...
2 years ago
Amendments: A Play On Words
Black Sheep
Sophia Holme
Stepping into Livia Kojo Alour’s dreamy solo show Black Sheep is a bit like being in someone's mind. Not vague but impressionistic, Alour’s priority seems to be taking the audience into the ...
2 years ago
Black Sheep
Nan, Me & Barbara Pravi
Sophia Holme
If Maxwell’s last show - the delightful I, AmDram - was a tour through a gallery, Nan, Me and Barbara Pravi is a film screening. While the former used a wide lens to capture a theatrical ...
2 years ago
Nan, Me & Barbara Pravi
Jamie Radcliffe: Please Don't Judge Me
Sophia Holme
Last week, I went to St Margaret’s Institute to see comedian Jamie Radcliffe’s second solo show: an impressive feat, considering the performer is only eighteen. After the Oxford Comedy Festival ...
2 years ago
Jamie Radcliffe: Please Don't Judge Me
Dirty Dancing
Sophia Holme
As someone who has never seen the beloved late 80s smash hit Dirty Dancing, I didn’t know how well its stage adaptation, touring now with Magic Hour Productions, would land with me. Would it come ...
2 years ago
Dirty Dancing
Oxford Comedy Festival 2023
Sophia Holme
The latest acts to grace the White House stage as part of the Oxford Comedy Festival were comedians Alison Spittle with her wide-ranging show Soup, and Nathan D’arcy, with his brilliantly spiky set ...
2 years ago
Oxford Comedy Festival 2023
Four Felons & A Funeral
Sophia Holme
Four Felons and a Funeral begins with something of a heist. After a long illness, Charlie is dead. His parents, while unsupportive in life, certainly intend to keep his ashes. But as we discover in ...
2 years ago
Four Felons & A Funeral
The Recruiting Officer - Restoration Comedy at its best
Sophia Holme
Reading the plot description for The Recruiting Officer on Wikipedia pre-show, I was sceptical. Oxford Theatre Guild’s latest offering is a Restoration-era comedy with a storyline that ducks and ...
2 years ago
The Recruiting Officer - Restoration Comedy at its best
The Verdict
Sophia Holme
The Verdict started its life as a bestselling novel, a courtroom drama written in 1980 by Barry Reed. It was subsequently turned into a film starring Paul Newman, which was nominated for five Oscars. ...
2 years ago
The Verdict
Oxford Comedy Festival 2023
Sophia Holme
The festival continues, with two great - but very different - acts, taking the mic at White House by Tap Social on Sunday night. First up, we had Louise Atkinson, whose show Mates focused on all ...
2 years ago
Oxford Comedy Festival 2023
Romeo & Juliet
Sophia Holme
Earlier this week I made my way to Oxford Castle and Prison, to watch Wild Goose Theatre’s open-air production of Romeo and Juliet. As I settled in, I was offered a fleece blanket, a lovely touch ...
2 years ago
Romeo & Juliet
Oxford Comedy Festival 2023
Sophia Holme
On Sunday night, I made my way to The White House by Tap Social, where upstairs, the second night of the Oxford Comedy Festival would be taking place, this time featuring Louise Young’s show Feral ...
2 years ago
Oxford Comedy Festival 2023
Alex Farrow: Wisdom of the Crowd (a new stand-up hour)
Sophia Holme
Last night, I enjoyed comedian Alex Farrow’s new show The Wisdom of the Crowd at Common Ground Workspace. It was a preview, or as he jokingly put it ‘mock exam’, before his Edinburgh Fringe ...
2 years ago
Alex Farrow: Wisdom of the Crowd (a new stand-up hour)
Sister Act
Sophia Holme
In 1970s Philly, Deloris Van Cartier (‘like the diamond!’) is an up-and-coming lounge singer who performs in a nightclub run by her married gangster boyfriend, Curtis Shank (Jeremy Secomb). ...
2 years ago
Sister Act
Queers
Sophia Holme
Queers is a collection of eight monologues curated by Mark Gattis and aired on the BBC in 2017, to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1967 Sexual Offences Act, which decriminalised sex between two men ...
2 years ago
Queers
A Caravan Named Desire
Sophia Holme
A Caravan Named Desire, Split Infinitive’s new production, which joins the Offbeat Festival fresh off the Brighton Fringe, begins before it begins. As the audience filters into Burton Taylor’s ...
2 years ago
A Caravan Named Desire
Bark Bark
Sophia Holme
Bark Bark, a new show from Buzzcut Productions, had its premiere at The North Wall last week. The promotional materials billed it as a "High Tech Two Hander" and “an innovative multimedia show ...
2 years ago
Bark Bark
The Great Gatsby
Sophia Holme
It’s once again student drama season, which means a succession of hits, misses and hidden gems filing in and out of the Burton Taylor Studio. But for Scar Theatre, their production of The Great ...
2 years ago
The Great Gatsby
An Unseasonable Fall Of Snow
Sophia Holme
A youngish man, bleary in sweats and a puffer jacket, stumbles into a brightly lit room. The room is professional in its blandness: fold-out table and chairs, whiteboard and coffee machine, graceless ...
2 years ago
An Unseasonable Fall Of Snow
5 Years
Sophia Holme
Five Years, a new play currently touring the country by Birmingham-based writer Hayley Davis, was borne out of a sad but probably unsurprising piece of national research: a significant portion of ...
2 years ago
5 Years
One Man, Two Guvnors
Sophia Holme
In 2011, One Man, Two Guvnors, Richard Bean’s adaptation of the 1743 Italian farce A Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldini opened at the National Theatre to critical acclaim. Now, the comedy ...
2 years ago
One Man, Two Guvnors
Gusto Italian
Sophia Holme
The new Oxford location of upmarket Italian chain Gusto is located on High St; in the vast 15th-century building that pre-pandemic housed the Mitre pub. Stepping inside, the aesthetic has undergone a ...
2 years ago
Gusto Italian
Wuthering Heights
Sophia Holme
Inspector Sands’ new adaptation of Wuthering Heights opened last month to largely positive reviews, and this week, takes up lodging in the Playhouse. I decided to go see what the fuss is about. The ...
2 years ago
Wuthering Heights
Taste Tibet
Sophia Holme
Taste Tibet is sort of a local legend. The cuisine is that of co-owner Yeshi Jampa, who was born and raised in rural Tibet. Before opening its doors just off Cowley Road, Taste Tibet made a name with ...
2 years ago
Taste Tibet
Ballet Black
Sophia Holme
A resilient and longstanding company, the 21-year-old Ballet Black is no stranger to reinventing itself, and this double act from Will Tuckket and Mthuthuzeli November (who also dances with the ...
2 years ago
Ballet Black
Experiment Human
Sophia Holme
Trying to summarize Experiment Human into one sentence is a nightmarish proposal, but let’s give it a go: two humanoid creatures called Monkion abduct beloved actor Benedict Cumberbatch in an ...
2 years ago
Experiment Human
THEM
Sophia Holme
Content Warning: mentions of sexual violence THEM, Body Politic’s show at The Pegasus last Thursday, tenderly explores the effects of sexual harassment and assault on three young women, through the ...
2 years ago
THEM
Romeo & Juliet
Sophia Holme
Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s comedy-turned-tragedy of young love, bitter grudge and wasted lives, is one of his most performed works and has become a cultural shorthand for doomed, forbidden ...
2 years ago
Romeo & Juliet
Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical
Sophia Holme
I tell myself that I like art that challenges me. I don’t know how true that is, but I know I definitely want the art I consume to emotionally punch me in the face. Fisherman’s Friends, touring ...
2 years ago
Fisherman’s Friends: The Musical
Noughts and Crosses
Sophia Holme
Noughts and Crosses, Malorie Blackman’s bestselling 2001 Young Adult novel, kicked off a series with a sharp yet straightforward conceit - a world where white people - or ‘Noughts’ - were ...
2 years ago
Noughts and Crosses
Bare
Sophia Holme
A cast of dozens, complex dance numbers, wacky dream sequences and a plot that seems hellbent on squeezing in every 2000s trope of American adolescence. No, we’re not talking about Glee, but rather ...
3 years ago
Bare
Women Behind the Wheel [TBC]
Sophia Holme
Women Behind the Wheel is a new documentary produced and created by Hannah Congdon and Catherine Haigh, two film-makers who filmed themselves traversing the Pamir Highway - the second-highest highway ...
3 years ago
Women Behind the Wheel [TBC]
Engraved
Sophia Holme
I’ve decided: if Engraved were a coffee it’d be a macchiato, which is an espresso with a little crown of foamy milk. The new play from Serendipity Productions is small, strong, and starts off ...
3 years ago
Engraved
Peacock
Sophia Holme
The blurb for Peacock, the latest offering from production company Greedy Pig, reads: “When Seamus came out as bi, he thought he’d finally worked everything out. But when he starts experimenting ...
3 years ago
Peacock
The Unicorn
Sophia Holme
In The Unicorn, a darkly comic and mesmerising one-woman play by Sam Potter, we meet Andrea, a depressed twentysomething woman teetering on the edge of a breakdown. After complaining about the sexual ...
3 years ago
The Unicorn
Ashmolean Rooftop Restaurant
Sophia Holme
Stepping into Ashmolean’s rooftop restaurant, you feel immediately refreshed. Before you stands an open, high-ceilinged space, airy and sleek with white marble. A wall of glass doors separates the ...
3 years ago
Ashmolean Rooftop Restaurant
The History Boys
Sophia Holme
Alan Bennet’s The History Boys debuted nearly twenty years ago, in 2004, to rapturous reviews. It picked up Olivier and Tony awards, among others, and launched the careers of Dominic Cooper, James ...
3 years ago
The History Boys
Frankenstein
Sophia Holme
Wild Goose’s maximalist production of Mary Shelley’s classic chiller Frankenstein, graces the Old Fire Station this week. A little refresher on the story: a ship captain, sailing the frigid ...
3 years ago
Frankenstein
No Dogs
Sophia Holme
At the end of January, I attended a live recording of No Dogs, a touching new audio drama from Flintlock Theatre that follows a pair of best friends living in London - one an immigrant from Jamaica, ...
3 years ago
No Dogs
Cell Outs
Sophia Holme
The UK criminal justice system is broken. No one knows this better than Glasshouse Theatre, former prison officers and the creators behind the hugely compelling new play Cell Outs. Ella and Harriet ...
3 years ago
Cell Outs
Mad(e)
Sophia Holme
In his 1997 book I Don’t Want To Talk About It: Overcoming The Secret Legacy Of Male Depression, family therapist Terrence Real pointed out the differences between how girls and boys think about ...
3 years ago
Mad(e)
Philippa James: Girlhood
Sophia Holme
Whether via tall trees or wide shots of fields, wilderness abounds in local photographer Phillipa James' excellent new exhibition Girlhood, which is on through this Saturday (28th January) at the ...
3 years ago
Philippa James: Girlhood
Jericho Comedy: Oxfordshire Mind Gala Matinee
Sophia Holme
Every year, Oxfordshire Mind partners with Jericho Comedy to put on a charity gala at the Oxford Playhouse. Thanks to the pandemic, they’ve performed six out of the last seven years. I’ve been ...
3 years ago
Jericho Comedy: Oxfordshire Mind Gala Matinee
MET Opera: The Hours [12A]
Sophia Holme
Last Saturday, I headed to the Phoenix Picturehouse in Jericho to watch an HD Livestream of The Hours, a stunning new opera by Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce, straight from the Metropolitan Operahouse. ...
3 years ago
MET Opera: The Hours [12A]
The Gruffalo
Sophia Holme
In 1999, Author Julia Donaldson and Illustrator Axel Scheffler released The Gruffalo - a picturebook with rhyming couplets telling a story about a little mouse making a life for itself in a deep, ...
3 years ago
The Gruffalo
A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Christmas
Sophia Holme
This is a show about all the potential catastrophes wrapped up in the traditions of Christmas - creepy and offensive relatives, cooking mishaps, overbearing parents, last-minute shopping, travel ...
3 years ago
A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Christmas
Spools
Sophia Holme
Last Spring, Cops and Robbers Productions, a student theatre company, put on The Improv Squeeze, an improvised rock musical based on the audience’s suggestions. The show was a sell-out success and ...
3 years ago
Spools
Troy Story: Age of the Hero
Sophia Holme
What Troy Story captures so perfectly is the futility of war, and the toxic masculinity underpinning it. Illuminating the lead-up to the Trojan War the show then, post-intermission, takes us a decade ...
3 years ago
Troy Story: Age of the Hero
Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
Sophia Holme
Few artists have influenced modern music to quite the same extent as Carole King. At 29, King was relatively old by music industry standards, when she released her breakout album Tapestry in 1971. ...
3 years ago
Beautiful - The Carole King Musical
The Mousetrap
Sophia Holme
Newly-ish weds Mollie and Giles Ralston (Joelle Dyson and Laurence Pears) have obtained Monkswell Manor, a fine country house they intend to run as a guesthouse. Preparing for their first set of ...
3 years ago
The Mousetrap
Othello
Sophia Holme
For the past 25 years, Frantic Assembly has been a fierce and eclectic theatre company, with a focus on physicality and creating cohesive, emotional performances. This approach has brought them ...
3 years ago
Othello
Beautiful Evil Things
Sophia Holme
From Madeline Miller’s Circe and Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls to Jessie Burton’s Medusa and Natalie Haynes's A Thousand Ships, feminist retellings of Greek myths have exploded on the ...
3 years ago
Beautiful Evil Things
PUSH
Sophia Holme
I was unsure what to expect going into this production. Push is a one-woman show by the dance-theatre troupe Popelei, performed by Tamsin Hurtado Clarke, exploring the potential pregnancy of a ...
3 years ago
PUSH
De Profundis: William Andris Wood
Sophia Holme
Last Friday night, I made my way to the Pembroke College JCR Art Gallery for the opening of a new show by William Andris Wood, titled De Profundis: a Journey Through Darkness in 20 Paintings. Wood is ...
3 years ago
De Profundis: William Andris Wood
After Edward
Sophia Holme
How deeply autobiographical can a work be before it becomes unwise to reproduce? Further to that, is there anything more personal than a play literally set in the author’s subconscious mind? The ...
3 years ago
After Edward
Austentatious
Sophia Holme
Last Saturday night, the long-running Improv troupe Austentatious paid the Playhouse a visit. Austentatious, for those unacquainted, is a show in which a sextet of performers improvise a ‘lost’ ...
3 years ago
Austentatious
Dido's Bar
Sophia Holme
Not having a background in Classics, I stepped into Dido’s Bar not knowing what to expect. The play is based on Virgil’s Aeneid - a sprawling twelve-book cycling following Aeneas (Lahcen ...
3 years ago
Dido's Bar
Foxfinder
Sophia Holme
A rustic farmhouse. A couple - Sam and Judith Covey - sit anxiously at the kitchen table, awaiting the arrival of their houseguest. It’s quickly made evident why they feel such dread: William ...
3 years ago
Foxfinder
The Banshees of Inisherin [15]
Sophia Holme
1923. While the Irish Civil war rages on the mainland, the small (and fictional) island of Inisherin remains a craggy green idyll, albeit one pickled in alcohol. Padraic (a career-best Colin ...
3 years ago
The Banshees of Inisherin [15]
Conversations
Sophia Holme
Walking to the Burton Taylor Theatre last night around nine pm, I had high hopes. Conversations, the evening’s entertainment, is a new play by Orange Script Productions founder William Heath, part ...
3 years ago
Conversations
Anna Dumitriu: Collateral Effects
Sophia Holme
As the COVID-19 pandemic nears the three-year mark, artistic responses to its effects have begun to steadily trickle in. While Collateral Effects, a month-long exhibition at the North Wall Arts ...
3 years ago
Anna Dumitriu: Collateral Effects
Quiet Rebels
Sophia Holme
Quiet Rebels, an innovative and at times frustrating new play created by Vital Xposure and Dervish Productions, is set in both a few years into a horrific alternate future and decades ago in an ...
3 years ago
Quiet Rebels
Saturday Night Fever
Sophia Holme
Bee Gees songs, popping hips, high-waisted flares, and disco balls stirring up a blizzard of light? Saturday Night Fever is back on stage, in all its seventies splendour, with Bill Kenwright’s ...
3 years ago
Saturday Night Fever
Emily [15]
Sophia Holme
Emily opens when Wuthering Heights is already a burgeoning success, and the titular Brontë sister (Emma Mackey) is seriously ill with an unknown condition. Tending to her, her well-meaning but ...
3 years ago
Emily [15]
Eleanor May Watson | Vibrant Life
Sophia Holme
Last Friday, I made my way to North Parade - a street nestled between Summertown and Central Oxford, festooned with multi-coloured lights and home to an array of boutique shops. I was there to visit ...
3 years ago
Eleanor May Watson | Vibrant Life
What Songs May Do
Sophia Holme
Snuggled up in the Burton Taylor studio last Tuesday (made even cosier by the removal of the front row of seats) I was treated to What Songs May Do – the first full-length production by acclaimed ...
3 years ago
What Songs May Do
Ferocious Grace Exhibition: Usha dapur Kar
Sophia Holme
Next to the title card for Ferocious Grace, a new exhibition at the Old Fire Station of 18 paintings by Usha depur Kar, is a graphic created by the Centre of Community Organization in Montreal, ...
3 years ago
Ferocious Grace Exhibition: Usha dapur Kar
I, AmDram
Sophia Holme
From women enjoying their newfound right to vote to the uncertainties of World War Two, to the microwave, smartphone and world wide web a lot has changed in England since 1929. But one thing that ...
3 years ago
I, AmDram
Little Boxes
Sophia Holme
Little Boxes, the newish one-woman show by Joann Condon, is one of those difficult-to-encapsulate shows whose elevator pitches tend toward the frighteningly generic. A show being ‘about the boxes ...
3 years ago
Little Boxes
Kingfisher Barn
Sophia Holme
In exchange for an honest review, Daily Info was recently invited to spend the night at Kingfisher Barn, a four-star B&B nestled into one of Abingdon’s green vistas.
Kingfisher Barn really did ...
3 years ago
Kingfisher Barn
Brown Boys Swim
Sophia Holme
Brown Boys Swim, a new play from young local playwright Karim Khan, introduces us to Mohsen (Anish Roy) and Kash (Varun Raj), two adolescent South Asian boys growing up in Oxford. Friends since early ...
3 years ago
Brown Boys Swim
Buzzing by Debbie Bird
Sophia Holme
In Debbie Bird's one-woman show Buzzing, she introduces us to Julie, a chirpy fifty-year-old divorcee. Julie is eager to figure out what she's been missing all this time in her passionless marriage ...
3 years ago
Buzzing by Debbie Bird
Of Ordinary Things exhibiton
Sophia Holme
There’s an ancient Greek thought experiment called The Ship of Theseus. It goes like this: Theseus has a ship. Over time, the sail is torn, planks decay and the mast rots. One by one, each is ...
3 years ago
Of Ordinary Things exhibiton
Happy Meal
Sophia Holme
Happy Meal, the witty and moving new rom-com from playwright Tabby Lamb, opens with its leads meeting in a Club Penguin chatroom, aged fourteen. From there, an enduring virtual friendship blooms ...
3 years ago
Happy Meal
Busaba
Sophia Holme
Busaba is a polite, warm-toned chain of Thai restaurants dotted throughout London, and now with locations in Cardiff and most recently, Oxford. I went a few months ago, and again last Thursday to ...
3 years ago
Busaba
Comfort Zone - Exhibition by Ellie Thompson
Sophia Holme
Viewing the promotional materials for this exhibition, - which is free to view, by appointment - the emotions invoked by the images didn’t quite match the descriptions given. A show titled Comfort ...
3 years ago
Comfort Zone - Exhibition by Ellie Thompson
Bullet Train [15]
Sophia Holme
It’s pretty clear from the opening scenes of Bullet Train that it's primary aim is to be fun. Like its duty-bound main character, it does competently enough at this - when it keeps its eye on the ...
3 years ago
Bullet Train [15]
The Invitation [15]
Sophia Holme
I went into The Invitation with high hopes. Sony’s gothic vampire mystery-horror sounded like just the tonic to banish my muggy end-summer haze and usher in Autumn.
Unfortunately, it’s as they ...
3 years ago
The Invitation [15]
Thor: Love and Thunder [12A]
Sophia Holme
At the time of me writing this, there are 28 cinematic movies in the Marvel universe, and that number is only set to grow. When your franchise is such a crowded market, each movie must fight to break ...
3 years ago
Thor: Love and Thunder [12A]
Nope [15]
Sophia Holme
After the (well-deserved) acclaim of Jordan Peele’s previous two films, Get Out and Us, viewers may start Nope assuming they know roughly what to expect. Coupled with the cryptic nature of the ...
3 years ago
Nope [15]
