Seth Saupin

Dec 9, 2024 | oxfordstudent.com | OxStu Culture |Seth Saupin

There is no better way to round-off the term than with a Pilch show. At least, that’s what I assured myself as I entered the small black-box theatre with a terrible cold and little confidence I’d make it to the interval without a top-up of Lemsip. Despite this, I was looking forward to the performance. I’d not encountered Shakespeare Abridged before, but enjoyed its premise – the performance of every single Shakespeare play, by the Tatley-Wigginbottom Amateur Theatrics Society.

Nov 12, 2024 | oxfordstudent.com | OxStu Culture |Seth Saupin

Cici Zhang’s directorial take on Othellowas something I’d heard whispers of long before it came to fruition. Needless to say, the promise of table-top tangos in University College’s Great Hall, knife fights, musical interludes and fistfuls of polaroids flung at the audience piqued my curiosity. So, early that day, I’d sat in on one of the cast’s rehearsals to get a sense of what exactly I was going to be in for.

Nov 7, 2024 | oxfordstudent.com | OxStu Culture |Seth Saupin

HAMM: We’re not beginning to… to… mean something? CLOV: Mean something! You and I, mean something! [Brief laugh.] Ah, that’s a good one!There is, perhaps, no better theatre to house Endgame than the Michael Pilch Studio. Devilish Whimsy Productions sees the oppressive little black box transformed, without much difficulty, into a vision of the post-apocalypse domestic. Two little windows, just as Samuel Beckett specified, sat high on the wall, backlit to give the impression of light outside.

Apr 29, 2024 | oxfordstudent.com | OxStu Culture |Seth Saupin

Francesca De Tores’ Saltblood follows the loosely historical life of female pirate Mary Read. To describe it only as a ‘pirate’ novel would be to do it a disservice, and although Saltblood has its fair share of swashbuckling misadventure it is kept mostly grounded in mud, bilge water, and in Read herself. Amidst a recent zeitgeist for the piratical – TV shows like Our Flag Means Death or Renegade Nell contributing significantly – De Tores’ novel stands out for its realism.