Oxford Playhouse
Tuesday 9th March-Saturday 13th March, 7.30p.m.
“the very fact that the audience feels guilty, voyeuristic, intrusive, is a testament to the powerful staging.” Pooja Bharat
“The whole cast oozed quality but the highlight performance of the play was Romola Garai’s portrayal of the cantankerous and irritable middle sister Masha Prozorov, who injected moments of humour into the play.” Catherine Owen

Burton Taylor : Tuesday 9th -Saturday 13th March; 7.30pm
“I couldn’t help feeling that many of the lines were delivered in a laboured and over-stressed way, particularly in the case of the Miller (Griffith Rees), who at times inexplicably resembled a pantomime villain and not the supposedly educated and intelligent man he was intended to be.” Madeline Wright
“Griffith Rees, however, is excellent as the enlightened outcast, the village miller. At first an insidious social pariah, Rees’ performance subtly develops the different facets of his character, as a man possessed of compassion …

Judged and reviewed by Imogen Sarre and Liv Edwards
The New Writing Festival was one hell of an experience. Chloe Courtney has done fantastic things this year, helping to transform a little known event into something prestigious, established, and utterly exciting. There was the most extraordinary amount of talent in the Burton Taylor on Saturday of 7th week and I felt extremely privileged to be there, rubbing shoulders with people who will most probably end up calling the dramatic big shots in years to come. Judging the Best Production was a fascinating …

Burton Taylor
Wednesday 3rd, Friday 5th March 7.30pm; Saturday 6th March 2.30pm
“watching Toffee is like being catapulted headlong into the dank, philosophy-stained, Pot Noodle-encrusted, sluggishly beating heart of the Real Student Experience.” Madeline Wright
“When I saw it last night, I had the privileged position in the audience of knowing what was about to happen, when the jokes were coming and, more importantly, how the play had developed over the last three weeks.” Eluned Gramich

Burton Taylor
Tuesday 2nd, Thursday 4th, Saturday 6th, 7.30p.m.
“Revival is both delightful and thought provoking in its half-playful, half-elegiac exploration of the boundaries and relations of whimsy, truth, creativity and authenticity.” Erin Greer
“The whole experience was oddly stripping and intense – I felt as though, as Tyler and Crispin and Fred were revealed as spinners of fantasy, we were too; the spotlight shone on our increasing investment in the play as a kind of reality, an escape from in Tyler’s words, ‘Life. The world. Everything that exists outside those doors.’” …

OFS Studio
Tuesday 23rd – Saturday 27th February, 7.30p.m.
“A play about tedium, then, that finds it hard not to veer on the tedious. I won’t say Yawn has no inner resources – it’s frequently funny, stylishly staged, and mostly well-acted – but behind the hot air and the encyclopaedic research, I don’t know how much heart, or point, this sparky but perhaps a little shallow script contains.” Richard O’Brien
“The problem is that a clever concept (and randomly inserted poo references) can only stretch so far.” Madeline Wright

Oxford Playhouse
Monday 22nd – Saturday 27th February; 2.30pm, 7.30pm
“The speed of the performance made it funny, but it meant it edged dangerously close to farce. In the first two acts, characters had the irritating habit of bumping into each other, as if this was a sound and unmistakeable way of expressing sexual attraction.” Eluned Gramich
“The production on the whole is marked by its comedy, the screenplay adapter, Simon Reade, utilizing often Wilde-esque syntax and situational irony to turn the underlying humor of Austen’s masterpiece into laugh-out-loud hilarity.” Jessica Fast …

Burton Taylor
Tuesday 16th  - Saturday 20th Februrary; 9.30pm
“This is a wonderfully directed, cleverly written play that finds the perfect balance between silliness and sophistication.” Liv Edwards
“I knew I was going to be biased going to see The Aphorist but I wasn’t prepared for the nerves, the heart-stopping moments when the rhythm of a scene changed and I wondered if they would forget a line,” Olivia Reilly
The Aphorist is a piece of New Writing so Olivia Reilly has been going to rehearsals, interviewing writer and director Fred Sugarman-Warner and producer …

At the Burton Taylor in 5th week, The Aphorist, written and directed by Fred Sugarman-Warner, is going to be performed. Olivia Reilly has been going to rehearsals, interviewing Fred and Joe Charlton (Producer), and will be one of the reviewers at its first night performance on Tuesday. This process will mirror the way that the OTR is going to be involved with the New Writers Festival in 7th week.
Interview with Fred and Joe: “When you let it out of your control and give it to the actors they bring things to it …

“My one and a half hours in the theatre had much in common with a successful first date: after the awkward introductions and occasional flat one-liners, came an intimate yet compelling acquaintanceship, followed swiftly by numerous outbursts of hysteria, and all ending with me wanting more.” Robert Holtom
“the cast are a talented, well-balanced comedy group who feed off each other’s energy superbly” Fabienne Cheung