Michelle, Nancy and Polly
I was invited to see this production on Tuesday by the Shared Experience Company at the Oxford Playhouse so gladly accepted. The performance was preceded by a reception where we had talks by Michelle Dickson (Director and Chief Executive of Oxford Playhouse), Nancy Meckler and Polly Teale (co-directors of Shared Experience).
I greatly enjoyed the play. It gave a really vivid and realistic depiction of how life must have been for the Brontë sisters living in that poor vicarage and putting up with their wayward brother. I found the second half of the production really quite moving but won’t spoil the plot for you here. I highly recommend going to see it if you haven’t already though! You don’t have much time left but booking is available.
It was good to hear the news that the Shared Experience Theatre Company is now resident at the Oxford Playhouse. Shared Experience says: “After many years of touring to the Playhouse we have come to enjoy a thriving relationship with both the theatre and it’s audiences. For the first time in it’s 35 year history Shared Experience will have a theatre for a home allowing us to evolve a special relationship with the city. We will premiere many of our plays in Oxford and create events that allow access to our rehearsal process and opportunities to see “behind the scenes” and get involved. At our rehearsal space in London we will create productions for the Playhouse that will tour nationally and internationally bringing thrilling evenings of vivid theatricality to the widest possible audiences.”
I am however horrified to see that the Arts Council has cut the national portfolio funding for Shared Experience at this exciting and fruitful time of its life. Shared Experience say “We are shocked and disappointed to hear that we will receive no National Portfolio Funding from 2012. We feel strongly our work delivers the Arts Council’s goals and we are devastated by their decision. We will now take time to consider fully where we stand and explore how we will continue beyond 2012. We very much hope to find a way to continue our new partnership with Oxford Playhouse as their resident company.”
I too hope that the partnership between the Playhouse and Shared Experience can be exploited as best as possible to ensure the continued viability of Shared Experience and the opportunity for the people of Oxfordshire and beyond to enjoy their creative expertise.
There were no planning applications although we did talk about the plans to make Jericho a conservation area and put an article 4 direction area in place (which basically removes permitted development rights from building owners). Although some buildings in Jericho, notably St. Barnabas Church, are worth preserving I must say that a lot of the housing is very substandard with no cavity walls, poorly insulated windows and incredibly insubstantial foundations. I’m not quite sure why we are preserving rows and rows of cheap houses that were originally built as mass housing for the poor. I think the planning restrictions will severely limit people’s ability or inclination to make their properties more energy efficient and I think that’s a real shame.
I was invited to this event, I guess because I am a City Centre Councillor. It was held at the Deanery at Christ Church and all sorts of notable folk from the City and surrounding area were present. I had the great pleasure of meeting some senior county councillors as well as many of the senior staff of Christ Church itself. The Dean himself and is wife were both extremely gracious and very good and making sure people were introduced to each other. It was a fascinating gathering to which I felt extremely privileged to be invited.
What an amazing evening! I was invited to this event as a ward councillor and I’m really glad I went. It really was a multi-talented, multi-colour spectacular of entertainment. The event was organised by the 
The agenda included discussions about drug dealing & misuse, alcohol-related antisocial behaviour and litter issues.
We had two brief full council meetings today. The first was to decide on which of the government modernistation schemes we wanted to adopt. It was a bit pointless as this is legislation that is a hangover from the last Labour government that will probably now never come into force. As a City Council we don’t like either option but have a statutory duty to choose one of them at the moment. The Greens wasted a lot of time with a ridiculous amendment trying to wreck the whole thing. Thankfully it fell otherwise we would have risked being outside of current legal requirements on the council. I fully expect the Greens to produce another misleading leaflet that claims that Labour and the LibDems have voted against democracy. We’ll see.
After those meetings we had the Lord Mayor’s Christmas reception which is a great opportunity to invite people from local charities to meet local councillors and other dignitaries. Councillors all get to invite a friend too so I invited Pearl Lewis, the coordinator of 
We looked again at the Westgate redevelopment planning permission renewal and I was concerned to hear from some residents who were seriously worried about noise and fume pollution to their properties. I hope this can be sorted out before any development proceeds. We also determined some other fairly minor planning applications.
