The President's Husband's Drama Reviews

How ironic that a play written by Sir John Vanbrugh, architect of Blenheim Palace, that most extravagant and baroque of all British buildings, should be mounted in the de Jager auditorium in Trinity College. It's a beautiful space, designed primarily for lectures and music. But it's restrained, cool, and unostentatiously modern. Putting on a Restoration Comedy in here is akin to holding a rock concert in an operating theatre. The acoustically-tuned, light oak woodwork crushes any illusion of another world, which meekly tries to stand its tiny ground, obscured by echoes of all the preceding day's powerpoints. This room shows you why lecture theatres are great for lectures, films, music and even stand-up comedy. But not for theatre. You either need to conquer the space (which means spending a huge amount on set decoration), or use a room which better reflects the style and mood of your play. Trinity's chapel is the first college chapel ever to be designed in the Baroque s...

If you thought Oxford University's recent election of a new Chancellor was a badly-run, drawn-out affair full of backbiting and skullduggery, well, just be grateful it wasn't a new Pope. If Conclave is to be believed, what those cardinals get up to would horrify even Peter Mandelson. Edward Berger's adaptation of Robert Harris's Vatican intrigue novel is a tense, twisty political thriller with one foot in 12 Angry Men and the other in The Da Vinci Code . The Pope is dead, and 108 naughty, squabbling, Catholic leaders assemble in Rome under the world-weary eye of Ralph Fiennes' Cardinal Lawrence, to decide, in the time-honoured fashion of forming secret alliances rather than holding a democratic debate, who should be the next Supreme Pontiff. The paper they burn to tell folks outside how far they've got in their decision-making is either black or white. But really it should be blue, because the process ignites an unholy ecclesiastical fireworks display of epic ...

After two years and six consecutive productions filled with war and gore, Jesus College’s project to perform all Shakespeare's plays in chronological order has finally moved into a new phase. This year is all about love and comedy, with A Midsummer Night's Dream , Romeo and Juliet , and, first of all, Love's Labour's Lost . Traditionally, this play is neither the most popular nor the most accessible of Shakespeare's comedies. The central concept (a group of young noblemen foreswearing the distractions of the fairer sex to coop themselves up in a castle and devote their lives to study) seems bizarre and remote. The minor characters - schoolteachers spouting convoluted Latin, dim-witted but amiable constables, Spanish swordsmen whose braggadocio thinly conceals a rich seam of gay subtext - can be confusing and hard to relate to. And the idea of a bunch of irresistible women happening to turn up and besiege the castle with romance, while the reclusive scholars instantl...

It's Autumn Incest Season at the Pilch, with last week's brother love-in Moth being followed by one of the most notorious sibling sex plays of all time, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore . They're very different. Where Moth is brand new, 'Tis Pity is nearly 400 years old. Where Moth is about coming to terms with one death, 'Tis Pity features multiple gruesome murders before our very eyes. Where Moth has scenes of eating breakfast cereal, 'Tis Pity has people literally eating each other's hearts. What unites these two plays is that they both have the courage to explore a taboo relationship, and make it the most innocent part of their story. That, and also these particular productions are both insanely brilliant pieces of theatre. I have seen 'Tis Pity a couple of times before, and it is a challenge for any director. The outrageous violence and over-the-top sex scenes usually produce at best titters and often brazen guffaws from the sceptical audienc...

How to Date a Feminist is a 2016 play by British writer Samantha Ellis, and at times it feels a relic of a time just long enough ago to be démodé, but not long enough ago to be nostalgic. Its scenarios (costume-parties and coffee shops) seem at home in the era-defining medium of the YouTube mini-series, and the play brims with the existential questions that were once hot topics of discussion: How can a man be a feminist? How should a feminist reconcile sexual desire with sexual politics? Nonetheless this production, directed by Robyn Patterson and Ivy Stephens, managed to resonate. The rom-com’s titular ‘feminist’ is actually the male love-interest, Steve (Esther O’Neill), rather than its central strong, independent woman, Kate (Bella Bradshaw). This is revealed in the very first scene, where in a disorienting turn of events, Steve proposes to Kate by apologising for patriarchy. As with most rom-coms, the play turns swiftly to the couple’s marriage. Here, the slightly cringe princ...

Saoirse is not for everyone. That is by no means a value judgement, for the play is quite brilliant, but it is a content warning. A piece of new writing by Molly Hill and James Hunter, the play follows Grace (Sophia George), a young actress, and Mr Clarke (Cameron Maiklem), Grace’s school drama teacher. Their story is presented through an interview, which at points swings into interrogation. Asking the questions are the offstage voices of a psychoanalyst and a journalist – both voice recordings – but the actors respond and interrupt these tapes fluidly. As a result, the questioning voices grow aligned with us as the audience, so that they seem sat with us, or perhaps just behind us, in the cramped Burton Taylor. Between the set of question-and-answers come sequences of dialogue between Grace and Clarke, where they recount and deliberate the circumstances of their relationship. These changes of format are well demarcated through the quick switching of lights: white and blaring in int...