We vow to thee our readers

By Timothy Bano

The drama pages are undoubtedly and unashamedly the most important section of the Oxford Student Newspaper. It’s true. According to a recent useless survey the majority of readers flick eagerly to the back in search of the high that can only come from casually scanning a three star review of a lackluster piece of new writing at the BT (or, if you’re involved in the production, hungrily taking in every sprinkling of phrase, bitterly swallowing the lines of criticism and carefully selecting the choicest phrases before spewing the latter all over Facebook). Therefore, your new drama editors thought it prudent to issue a pledge to our countless devoted readers. It is, after all, only fair.

We pledge that these pages will be free of frippery and silliness. They will be devoted exclusively to pensive articles on various aspects of theatre and unbiased reviews of student and professional performances. There will be no “puff pieces” – that is, articles that do not meet our strict criteria for objectivity, austerity, comprehension and ingenuity. Obviously, this article doesn’t count. Oh, back to the reviews – we pledge that reviews will be written by individuals unconnected to the play in question in any shape or form. Ideally, they won’t even be aware they are In order to avoid the omnipresent problem of production team members and mates posing as impartial observers, each reviewer will be subject to a thorough MI5 style background check and interrogation. Hence, the OxStu will become THE authority on theatre reviewing, rendering all other bodies of a similar nature quite unnecessary. Soz guys.

We are devoted to the service of our readers; therefore these pages will be home to hard hitting criticism and pictures of attractive people and pretty costumes and things. We promise to cover as many Oxford based productions as humanly possible. We promise not to misuse the term “metatheatre”. We promise to avoid the term “metatheatre” whenever humanly possible. We will avoid pretension. We will be down to earth. And gritty. We’ll tell you if something’s crap. And we’ll tell you if it’s alright.

Charlotte Lennon