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1 month ago | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
My ticket to see Julie resembled an invite to a birthday party, promising a live DJ and that I would be greeted by ‘partygoers’ upon entry to the Pilch. This was the first play I’ve ever been to where I was offered a ‘free shot’ on entry (I politely declined), combined with the muted thumping of the DJ set spilling out of the Pilch, it added to the feeling of arriving at a lively house party. I was a few minutes early to the show and one of the first people to enter.
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Jul 14, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
I was lucky enough to spend the night of the 4th of July in a bustling sports hall in Abingdon, working as a stringer for ITV for this year’s general election. For me – and for most current university students – this election was our first opportunity to vote. It also happened to be a historic election, with the Conservative vote collapsing, dropping to their lowest number of seats since their formation in 1834.
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May 30, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
One hundred years on from the death of the iconic Franz Kafka, Bodleian Libraries’ most recent exhibition at the Weston Library is an engaging dive into the life and legacy of the famous author. It is a project that marks the largest simultaneous showcase of Kafka’s works ever displayed alongside similar displays carried out by other libraries across the world. What is truly striking about the exhibition is the stark dichotomy between the two interpretations of Kafka’s life and personality.
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May 23, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
One of the characteristic features of the 1997 Labour Party general election campaign was their use of D:Ream’s song “Things Can Only Get Better” in their campaign video. This song was selected to conjure optimism following what many saw as eighteen years of Conservative failure which had left the country at an all-time low.
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May 19, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
Arriving at a packed-out Playhouse to see Shakespeare’s rarely performed The Two Gentlemen of Verona I had high expectations. The production marks director Sir Gregory Doran’s completion of all 36 plays in Shakespeare’s First Folio, and with a man as experienced as the former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in charge, it was understandable that I was expecting big things.
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May 5, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
On Friday 3rd May, the University of Oxford celebrated the ’topping out’ of the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. The ceremony to mark the completion of the roof involved speeches from Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey and donor Stephen A. Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone Group, who has to date donated £185 million in support of the project. Musical acts clad in hard hats braved rainy conditions to perform on the roof, still a site of ongoing construction.
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Mar 22, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
As students, it is often easy to forget about the rich cultural scene at Oxford, especially given our hectic term time schedules. Therefore, it was a pleasure to return to Oxford during the vacation to visit the Ashmolean’s new exhibition, which showcases some of the best drawings of the great Flemish artists of the 16th and 17th centuries. Upon entering the first room, a dimly lit space which takes your eyes some seconds to adjust to, we are greeted by a preview of what is to come.
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Mar 9, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Emma Jeffries |Georgia Campbell |Adam Saxon |Tara Westover
Emma Jeffries: Educated: A Memoir by Tara WestoverIt’s rare that I find non-fiction to be such a page-turner, but Tara Westover’s autobiography was just that. It reads more like a novel than biography, but the exciting passages of prose are interspersed with Westover’s reflections on the experiences she went through and her wider message about the importance of education in forming an individual.
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Mar 3, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
Following their victory in the reserve Cuppers final last weekend, Keble’s first team and women’s team (Hertble, a joint team with Hertford) looked to make history this week in a double-header of finals at Iffley. No college had ever managed the feat of winning all three trophies in the same year: doing so would be unprecedented. In the first game of the day, Hertble faced a strong Summertown team from LMH, St Hugh’s, and Trinity.
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Feb 24, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Adam Saxon
Arriving at the TS Eliot theatre to be greeted by a small (intimate?) venue, I was fascinated to see how the Merton Floats, in collaboration with the Univ Players, would deliver on their promise of a ‘film noir’ take on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. We were warned before the sold-out Friday showing that a cast member had been taken ill and other members would be ‘filling in’- but as the cliché goes, the show must go on, and soon enough the lights dimmed, and the play began.
