A Review of Hilary Term 2024

I have long been a believer that Hilary Term is the best of the three at Oxford. Many will argue against this, stating that with the January and February weather, Hilary is the most depressing term. But, for whatever reason I have always loved it. Perhaps this is due to the feeling that it is the middle of the academic year, when everything has settled down but the exam pressure has not yet become too forceful. Not that this has been the case this term for me. With two Finals due and plenty of extra curriculars, this term has passed in a blur that has left me wandering the city over the past couple of days simply trying to breathe in its beauty. There have been balls, train journeys, dissertation all nighters and a few too many rehearsals, but ultimately what you are wondering is what injury I sustained. So, allow me to enlighten you… In a hurry to get to a social, I rushed out of my room slamming my thumb in the door on my way. Suffice to say, I was not in a rush after this. Was the social worth it? Probably. And besides, the way to hide a bruised, swollen thumb nail is simply to add nail polish. And with that, let us dive headlong into my more than a little chaotic term…

On an academic front, the term has been a quiet one. I arrived half way through a paper on manuscripts that had been set in Michaelmas term and was due not long after we came back. That feels like forever ago now – the days spent studying pages of manuscripts and sending photos of German passages to my best friend (who had yet to arrive) asking for rough translations. The rush to the finish line was followed almost immediately by a crash, as is often the way, and I spent the entirety of second week in bed with a flu so bad that I was barely awake. It was not what I would consider ideal and resulted on me needing a two week supervision extension for my dissertation to make up for lost time.

I’m sure that this all sounds like a less than exciting start to term, so allow me to spice things up by detailing my third week. The week began with a train ride to London to photograph and review Mina Moniri’s Bury Me, which introduced me to Hammersmith and forced me to use the tubes properly for the first time in… well, probably ever. The next night saw me in the O’Reilly sitting in the reviewing seats, while the aware that the next day I had both a dinner with family and a ball to attend. This was the first ball of my week and by far the most relaxed of the three. It was simply a night of strange poeticism as we danced away the hours to ‘Murder on the Dancefloor’. A late night walk up St Aldate’s and an early morning as I had to be in Battersea by midday… Battersea Arts Centre was the location of the Gauntlets and Gowns ‘Nightcourt Ball’, where I had the pleasure of shadowing the photography team for two nights. The experience was one that I have talked about extensively on my Instagram, being a beautiful combination of fantasy dreams, learning and new friends. I have always had trouble perfectly expressing incredible experiences, so suffice to say the entire week was incredible, with the weekend standing out as the highlight of the year, let alone the term. I am so grateful to the team for giving me the opportunity and am looking forward to attending one of their balls on the other side of my Finals.

These were the second and third excursions to London of the term, the first being to see The Motive and the Cue in first week, which was undeniably phenomenal. Three of my other trips were to review shows for Broadway World; The Boy at the Back of the Class, Everybody’s Talking about Jamie and Scarlet Sunday. I am becoming quite a dab hand at finding theatres in obscure locations and writing up reviews at 3am and have had my first red carpet experience thanks to Jamie. Of course, this does not mean to say that I have been neglecting Oxford Drama! I have still done the odd bit of reviewing this term and have been a spectre in the corner of most of Peedie Productions’ rehearsals this term and was at every night of the show week of The Sun King, if only in the dressing room chatting to the stage manager. I have learnt about front of house, photographed runs, and continued to be a quiet mouse in the corner of committee meetings.

Theatre, however, has not been as central to my life as it has been over the past year, and I have taken the break from directing (the first since my first year) to explore my other interests, embarking on a yet uncompleted photography project regarding angel wings and trying to edit the book that I wrote between my second and third year. I am looking forward beyond my degree as well as looking back over the past three years and the amazing experience that it has been. I’m sure this makes me sound awfully sentimental but frankly it’s a pleasure to start to draw the various threads together through fiction. Speaking of fiction, I have had many questions about whether I will write a piece on this term’s offering from our production company and the answer is no. I had a wonderful time watching The Sun King unfold, but the journey is not at an end just yet and neither is the production company’s… watch this space!

And with that I will draw this increasingly lengthening blog post to a close. There is plenty that has not been mentioned… an honourable mention going out to the OUDS karaoke night and the all nighters I pulled to get my diss in, not to mention the college events that I have attended. The (almost) ten weeks have been a whirlwind and (almost) every second of it has been a pleasure.