What's in the Cinema this Week? (May 18-24)

Opening in Oxford this week is Magicians, David Mitchell, Robert Webb,and James Mellor. Comedy duo Mitchell and Webb play rival magicians who have fallen out over a guillotine mishap. A magic competition forces them into a confrontation. This film contains strong language and comic sex references. (15)

Also opening this week is Zodiac, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., and Mark Ruffalo. This thriller, based on a true story and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, is about reporters and police in San Francisco who became more and more obsessed with a serial killer who taunted them in the 1970s. This film contains strong language and violence. (15)

On Thursday,Pirates of the Caribbean - At World's End opens, starring Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and Johnny Depp. Navigating through treachery and wild waters, they must confront the cunning Chinese Pirate Sao Feng and head beyond the ends of the earth. (12A)

Opening at the Phoenix Cinema this week is Dans Paris, Romain Duris, Louis Garrel, Guy Marchand, and Joana Preiss. Volatile Paul (Duris) is in thrall to the same kind of depression that led to his sister's suicide some years earlier. When his relationship hits the skids, he returns to his dad's apartment plunged in bottomless despair. Refusing to leave his brother’s room, Paul is comforted in various ways by the attentions of his family. This film is in French with subtitles. (15)

Also at the Phoenix Cinema this week is the Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, starring Joe Strummer, Don Letts, and Mick Jones. Director Julien Temple chronicles the life of antiestablishment icon Joe Strummer, front man of the seminal punk band The Clash. Through previously unearthed interviews with Strummer and recollections of those who knew him best, Temple reveals a complex man who used his music as a bullhorn for his conscience and a means to educate others about the injustices of the world. The film includes concert footage spanning Strummer's career and tapes of his BBC radio programme, all of which provide a fitting soundtrack to his storied existence. The performance footage would be fascinating on its own, but Temple probes beyond Strummer's mystique to reveal a person with his flaws who could sometimes be idealistic to a fault. A truthful and poignant tribute to a 'punk rock warlord'. (15)

Get showtimes for all the cinemas in Oxford

What's in the Theatre this Week? (May 18-24)

The Oxford Playhouse:

The Taming of the Shrew - Remarkable all male Shakespeare ensemble Propeller is back with a fabulous comedy of mistaken identities, transformations and deceptions.

Twelfth Night - Remarkable all male Shakespeare ensemble Propeller is back with a fabulous comedy of mistaken identities, transformations and deceptions.

Superstrings - Superstrings - a unique double act with Jack Liebeck, virtuoso violinist, and Professor Brian Foster, head of the Particle Physics department at the University of Oxford - explores Einstein's life both in science and in music.

Teapot Tinies - Go on a delightful musical adventure every week in the heart of the city. In the light and airy space of the Top Room at Oxford Playhouse, you and your tiny one(s) will sing, move and play with pre school music specialist Emily Marshall. Free activities available before and after the session so come early and stay late. Suitable for 0-4 year olds.

Six Characters Looking For An Author - Six characters are created, only to be abandoned by their author. They want their story told. University of Oxford student company Another Place Productions presents this modern classic from Nobel Prize-winner Pirandello.

Old Fire Station:

Abigail's Party - Gathered around the cheese and pineapple cocktail sticks, five characters of 1970s middle class suburbia play at being grown ups. Overshadowed by the music blaring from fifteen year old Abigail's party, the evening painfully unfolds in Mike Leigh's unflinching social satire.

Two - A sharp, salty, quick-fire, evocation of the surface gaiety and underlying melancholia of English pub life. Meet the Landlord and Landlady as we follow them through a working day encountering the many quirky and outright bizarre pub goers as they struggle to get to the bar before last orders. With only two actors portraying all the characters, the audience are drawn into exploring the hidden truths that lay beneath the light-hearted banter of everyday pub talk.

Burton Taylor Theatre:

Whale Music - by Anthony Minghella. A sensitive and moving portrayal of five friends who journey to the Isle of Wight to support Caroline, their pregnant and single friend, as she prepares to give her child up for adoption.

After Miss Julie - Escalating sexual and class tensions end in tragedy for Miss Julie in Marber's reworking of Strindberg's classic.

Lovers - Joe and Mag are engaged as Mag is pregnant. They revise for their exams with aspirations of a hopeful life. A tragic accident saves them from a more likely fate.

Being Ordinary - A one-act musical about quirks conventions and everything in between.

New Theatre:

Guys and Dolls - A musical fable of Broadway. Based on Damon Runyon’s tales of the New York underworld, with Frank Loesser’s wonderful music, it brings to life the Broadway of the 1940s inhabited by gamblers, nightclub performers and members of the Salvation Army in search of sinners to cure.

Pegasus Theatre:

Snake in the Geisha Palm - Snake In The Geisha Palm is collaboration between dance, film, music and visual design. Using striking imagery with a compelling sound track and film score it explores the choreography of combative martial arts as dance and creates a visionary 21st century performance medium.

Theatre at Headington:

Mortimer’s Miscellany - Sir John Mortimer is a playwright, a novelist and a retired barrister. He has written many film scripts and plays including A Voyage Round My Father, the 'Rumpole' plays which won him the British Academy Writer of the Year Award, and the classic adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Many of his novels have been made into successful television series. His most recent book is Rumpole Rests His Case, whilst his film script credits include Zeferelli's Tea with Mussolini. He received a knighthood for his services to the arts in 1998. Accompanied by two actresses, a piano and flautist, John Mortimer's appearance at The Theatre at Headington promises to be an evening to remember, packed with stories and anecdotes.

College Theatre:

A Tale of Two Cities - O'Reilly Theatre, Keble College. A spectacular period retelling of Charles Dickens' epic masterpiece, embracing themes of love, life, humanity and sacrifice in 18th Century Europe.

Private Lives by Noel Coward - Queen's College Gardens. Windmill Productions and Eglesfield Players present Coward's masterful comedy of bad manners, dry humour, and fiery romance.

Bare Feet on a Cold Floor - Moser Theatre, Wadham College. A moving story about Ann and Monty, a married couple, as they relive moments from their relationship and discuss love, memory and the reasons we stay alive.

Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare - Physics, Materials and Engineering Department. This promenade production takes you through a Rome of concrete, steel and glass. The madness of the Lupercal and the threatening Ides of March combine in a new, raving, urban goth splatterpunk extravaganza. Meet outside Physics Department on Keble Road

The Bees - Corpus Christi College Gardens. Loosely based on Aristophanes, The Bees was first performed in Corpus Garden in 1967. This satire on Oxford College life remains remarkably relevant 40 years on. The press review in 1967 called it: "redolent with the sophisticated, witty, slightly wicked, now and then vain, but at heart innocent and fancy-free charm of Oxford..." All profits go to the Charity: Knowledge Aid for Sierra Leone

For all theatre information, times and dates, click here

This Week's Music Highlights (May 18-24)

Friday:

• Grove String Quartet - Christ Church Cathedral
• 'Goya' - Tom Kerstens Plays Spanish Guitar- Holywell Music Room
• Sacred Voices: Dhafer Youssef and Vox Clamantis - Sheldonian Theatre

Saturday:

• Oxford Lieder - Holywell Music Room
• Oxford University Wind Orchestra - University Church of St Mary
• Summertown Choral Society - St Barnabas Church
• The Melting Pot Presents The Falling Idols + Slashed Seat Affair + Matt Greenham - Jericho Tavern
• Hip Hop / Urban Night featuring Inspekt’A’Rhyme + Mr. Shaodow + Chris Martin + Devlish + Nonsense - The Music Market

Sunday:

• Coffee Concert with Doric String Quartet - Holywell Music Room
• Verdi Requiem - The Bernwode Singers - Oxford Town Hall
• Schumann’s Dichterlibe - World Premiere Performance - Jacqueline du Pre Music Building
• The Epstein’s Evening Of Fine Music - Holywell Music Room

Monday:

• Famous Monday Night Blues with Never The Bride (UK) - Backroom at the Bully

Tuesday:

• Frassani & Nik Gibson (Jazz) - The Big Bang
• Oxford Jazz Club with Alvin Roy - Backroom at the Bully

Wednesday:

• Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte - Hertford College Chapel (lunchtime)
• XXjaZZ Presents A Jazz Jam - The House Jazz Band led by Paul Jefferies and invited guests - Exeter Hall Pub
• The Flies - Jericho Tavern

Thursday:

• Buxtehude & Mendelssohn - The Organ Works - Queen's College
• Just East of Jazz - Spin at the Wheatsheaf
• Emily Burridge & BJ Cole (Cello and Pedal Steel Guitar) - Modern Art Oxford
• Amberstate - QI Club

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