By Simon Pipe If comedy is all about timing, then Brian Mullin's new satire hits the spot. While Tony Blair thumps the tub for war against Iraq, here comes Retrospect, a fast-paced piece of theatre about the fight against terror. Mullin's play draws similarities between a US missile strike against unknown but "suspected" terrorists, and a deposed dictator's attempts to pass off murder of civilians as "rooting out terrorism". As matters spin hilariously out of control, truth becomes blurred and assumptions are undermined.  | | Amanda Walker explores love, hate and power |
The scenario's not quite the same as the one being written by Bush and Blair, but otherwise the scheduling is uncanny. Retrospect is one of four student plays receiving their premieres at theatres around the city between February 25 and March 1. They are all finalists in the New Writing Festival staged each year by the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS). They have been selected from dozens of plays submitted by students at the university at the start of the academic year.  I love her so much. I could have cut her up into little pieces and had her for lunch | | Line from Splitting Anna |
Finalist Amanda Walker, writer of Splitting Anna - described as "a literate Reservoir Dogs" - already has a pedigree as a playwright. She is a former member of the Royal Court Young Writer's Programme. Her story of "men, women and dismemberment" is directed by Polly Findlay, an Exeter College student who appeared at the Young Vic and with the Royal Shakespeare Company during eight years as a professional actress. Bear necessities It's on at the Burton Taylor Theatre. Lizzie Nunnery's first play, The Fine Art of Falling to Pieces, is a "brilliant" comedy about the struggle by a group of friends to understand - well, the big issues in real life. | This is what it is, me and you sitting here on this couch. And if there's no tomorrow and no Jane Austen and no Suzie, this'd be the best place to be | | Line from The Fine Art of Falling to Pieces |
Much of this takes place in pubs, including Oxford's oldest tavern, the Bear. Try this for a scenario: Bella and Richard are going out but really they hate each other; Bella loves Jamie but Jamie loves Suzie; Frank fancies Bella but would say he was in love, exactly. But Bella has bigger things on her mind. Familiar territory, then, for anyone who catches it at Wadham College's Moser Theatre. The overall winner, though, was Too Much The Sun by Nicholas Pierpan - also being performed at the Moser Theatre. It concerns a thief, newly released from prison, whose epileptic fits come complete with mental red lights and the sound of Sammy Davis Jr in his head. He never even liked Sammy Davis Jr. There's also an old clockmaker, Soros, who believes the former lifeboat coxswain he employs to guard his property is going to kill him. The play follows the progress of the thief and the coxswain as they piece together a puzzle of locks, clocks and guns arranged for them by old Soros. It's intriguing stuff, we're told. Nightly performances of all four plays take place between February 25 and March 1. See our theatre listings for details.
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