Anyone who describes reviewing a student play as a burden simply hasn’t watched a good play for some time. A free seat to watch young actors, directors, cast, and crew put all their effort into a production with minimal funding and frills is always an incredible experience. Ulster American is one such production. In the limited space of the Burton Taylor studio, set amazingly by Naomi Flexman and well lit according to the conditions of the play by Gabrielle Panova, the creative and personal struggle between the trio within the director’s apartment is brought to life. 

Whilst David Ireland is a fantastic playwright, with his work drawing such names as Woody Harrelson, Andy Serkis, and Matthew Broderick, the play itself is not fantastically well known, and so directors Kate Burke and Robyn Hayward were confronted with a challenge when producing this black comedy. How to communicate to the audience that the entire play shouldn’t be watched in stony silence, but that its seriousness should also be grasped? The directors, producer Frankie Maino, and welfare officer Madeleine Evans faced an almost impossible challenge, particularly given the sensitive material the play touches on. 

But it is a challenge they have pulled off adeptly, helped by a fantastic cast. With Aaron Gelkoff playing Jay Conway, an American actor almost stereotypically self-centred and shallow, Rohan Joshi as Leigh Carver, the anxious-to-please and superficially sensitive director, the play’s opening thirty minutes were well secured. Gelkoff gave an unforgettable performance that never fell into cliché, even as he played the sort of publicly quasi-intellectual American actor most people can imagine – think Brad Pitt. Joshi gave what I believe to be the finest performance of the night, acting as the cantilever of the play, a director increasingly desperately attempting to keep his production aloft. Conway lauded over Carver with skin-deep soul-searching and quizzical observations that Carver, in his desire to avoid any obstructions to his play, accepts, only raising a swiftly muted challenge when Conway describes a particular debauched and morally bankrupt thought.

A decent way into the play, the arrival of Caeli Colgan as Ruth Davenport, the playwright, upsets the unchallenged dynamic that had prevailed thus far. Davenport, as the eponymous’ play’s auteur, engages with the themes the audience might expect as a product of Ireland. She is brilliant, challenging Conway where Carver had been willing to let issues slide – after her brief awe at his celebrity wanes, of course. Arriving following a car crash with her mother, Davenport’s family looms large over the play, as her own identity as a Protestant Unionist rubs both the quintessential Guardian-reading upper middle class liberal Carver, and the self-righteous Conway, the wrong way. Carver fundamentally fails to grasp the basis for unionist identity, whilst Conway’s idiocy and lack of interest in the play itself – communicated with repetitive, deliberate contradictions by Gelkoff – leads this supposedly proud Irish American to express horror at the fact that, rather than being written by an Irish Catholic, ‘the play was written by a Unionist Protestant Brit.

The energy of the play doesn’t abate once the trio assemble, and the comic elements are used fantastically – it, unlike some black comedies, never fails to elicit laughs from the audience, even as the play thundered towards its dramatic conclusion. But there was something left on the table as the audience stood and applauded and began to file out.  For a play that pertained to be about Irishness and the intricacies of Northern Ireland, juxtaposed with those of America, little examination of either appeared for long. That is partly Ryan Ireland’s sin, but I think that the directors could have been bolder in how they approached his work. Casting someone of colour, for example, in the role of the director – which is not a bash at Joshi, who plays the flawed conciliator to a tee – would have lent a layer of intricacy to the discussion on the use of the N word at the start, and race throughout, that was absent. Having two women in the play, rather than one woman against two men, would have greatly changed the power dynamics regarding discussions of Britishness, Irishness, and its relation to the blunt brutality of the American actor’s wishes; again, this is a sin of Ireland’s, not the cast or crew. The actors are fantastic, and are reliable fixtures of the OUDS circuit that improve with every performance.

Ulster American’s great performances and direction have, however, left its contentious script unchallenged. The ending of the play captures this well. However, whilst it is in line with a black comedy to have Conway and Carver claim credit for Davenport’s success, whilst lumping her with a gendered accusation of mental health issues, this fails to deliver on the promise raised earlier in the play. Davenport – again, played fantastically by Caeli Cogan – is clearly Ireland’s favourite, but she, like Conway, is a character that never reaches the depths of her own morality.

Joshi’s Carver steals the limelight in large part because he reaches beyond the bounds of Ireland’s limits and lends depth and intricacy to the character. He appreciates the experimental element of student theatre, his character attempting to ensure the play’s survival, his own success and conception of himself as a liberal and friend to Davenport. The high drama at the end of the play, featuring an addition not part of the original script, is effective, but the addition is unnecessary. It undermines the nuances to Conway’s character and hamfists what had been a subtle but palpable inequality of power running throughout the play, and serves as a fine allegory for the production itself.

It is superbly acted, fantastically staged and lit, and the production of the play is star-quality. But a failure of directorial ambition, not in producing a poorly directed play but in failing to challenge, or meaningfully amend, Ulster American, precludes it from being a truly great play.

The University’s Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG) is leading the development and trialling of a vaccine in response to the recent Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). 

The team, led by the Head of Vaccine Immunology and the OVG and Pandemic Sciences Institute, Professor Teresa Lambe OBE, is working alongside the University’s Clinical BioManufacturing Facility and the Serum Institute Pvt. Ltd, to research, create, and trial the viral-vector vaccine. Estimates suggest a workable vaccine could be available within two to three months. 

Depending on its performance at animal trials, a World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesperson said it could be “a promising candidate research vaccine” for the Bundibugyo Ebola strain responsible for the outbreak. 

Lambe told Cherwell: “OVG has more than 30 years of experience in the development and testing of vaccines, which allows us, alongside our partners, to pivot and apply our expertise in times of outbreak…The ability to move rapidly in situations like this has been built on many years of vaccine research and close collaboration with our global partners.” 

The May 2026 Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak, originating in the DR Congo, has been rated a “very high” public health risk by the WHO. Though the risk is low internationally, the WHO declared it a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), a status that encourages cross-continent co-operation. At the time of publication, there have been an estimated 220 deaths and 900 cases, with 11 countries understood to be at risk. 

The specific strain of Ebola, Bundibugyo, is rare and has not been seen for over a decade, with the last two outbreaks occurring in 2007 (in Uganda) and 2012 (in the DR Congo). Naturally occurring in animals and fruit bats, the disease spreads among humans through infected bodily fluids, with research suggesting a mortality rate of between 30 – 50%. 

Initial symptoms are similar to the flu, with illness often beginning with a fever and a headache. Symptoms rapidly progress to vomiting, diarrhoea, and, later, internal bleeding and organ failure. At present, there are no approved vaccines for this particular Ebola species. 

Treatment for the virus has been hindered by violent conflict in the DR Congo between the Congolese military and the M23 rebel group, which has displaced a quarter of a million people.

Having previously worked on the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, as well as vaccines for Sudan Ebolavirus and Marburg Virus, the OVG has utilised the same vector platform (ChAdOx1) used in the COVID-19 vaccine, and adapted it to the Bundibugyo Ebola strain. By altering the genetic code, the vector platform can be tailored to different filoviruses.

The vaccine base relies on a common cold virus, typically found amongst chimpanzees. By altering the viral makeup to ensure it is safe for human beings, the virus can travel around the body, delivering information to cells to target and kill the Bundibugypo virus. However, before trials are completed, the scientists involved cannot guarantee that the vaccine will be effective. 

Once the vaccine has been effectively trialled and approved, it will be sent to the Serum Institute of India to be mass-produced. Lambe said in a statement: “Once we get starting [sic] material to them, they can go fast and they can go big”.

Lambe told Cherwell: “Right now, the focus is on generating the data needed to support development, scaling manufacturing with the Serum Institute of India (SII) Pvt. Ltd, and preparing for clinical trials should they become necessary… My hope is that this outbreak can be brought under control quickly and that vaccines are ultimately not needed.”

When I travel, I like to think I am not like the other British tourists. I try my best to blend in with the locals – attempting (and sometimes failing) to remain nonchalant on complicated metro systems, eating local cuisine, and avoiding ‘loud’ clothing. On a recent solo trip to Stockholm, however, my expectations were challenged by what I believed to be a given: English. I had been to Italy, where English captions accompany pretty much everything, and France, where the same is true, though it is offered with more reluctance. In my ignorance, I had not bothered to learn any Swedish beyond a measly ‘engelska?’, which became problematic as I quickly discovered that my bleached-blonde hair made me look like a Scandi girl to the locals.

I should experience some local culture, immerse myself in the arts scene, I thought as I settled into my hotel. Checking the programme of the capital’s Kulturhuset Stadsteatern, or ‘city theatre’, the single showing with English subtitles was the Austrian film How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World, directed by Florian Pochlatko. Sure, it wasn’t Swedish at all, but how else would I understand the story, if it wasn’t for English subtitles? As I hurriedly approached the Kulturhuset, one Ryanair flight and a frenzy through the Stockholm metro behind me, I was suddenly informed that there would be no subtitles at all.

How hard could it be to watch an entire film in German when I could not even introduce myself in the language? Quite hard, it turns out. Sure, body language and visual effects went a long way, and I felt the beautiful serendipity of discovering a Swedish review on Letterboxd from a local at the same screening, but I missed almost every joke, and felt myself growing increasingly bored as the film progressed. The biggest surprise for me in Stockholm was just how English-less it was, from road signs to price tags to food labels – I had to open Google Translate in the middle of 7/11 to work out if I could eat my halloumi wrap cold.

I do not expect sympathy at all, as my own ignorance led to this situation. But the experience did make me reflect on the relationship between native English speakers and subtitling in film. My not-so-Swedish encounter was certainly extreme, with no subtitles, or even a warning, beforehand – but I was not so turned off by the experience so as to never do it again. It made me wonder, are sole English speakers reliant on subtitles? Do they add or detract from the viewing experience?

Subtitles themselves are in many ways crucial, so that we may broaden our tastes and learn about other cultures. After accepting the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film in 2020, Parasite director Bong Joon Ho famously stated that “once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films”. I do believe that progress is already well underway in the globalisation of film, as what was once potentially a pursuit of only the avant-garde film student is now available to the masses. This is particularly thanks to the rise of Letterboxd, where international arthouse cinema is compiled into digestible lists.

The art of translating subtitles is also, perhaps surprisingly, one of the few language-based jobs not being ravaged by advancements in AI. Despite the now infamous case of Duolingo replacing much of its staff with AI, translator vacancies continue to grow, owing to the simple fact that AI is not currently capable of the quality control and idiomatic knowledge possessed by a human. Have you ever tried to translate complicated Swedish halloumi wrap instructions with Google Translate? In regard to film, it is vital that translated subtitles do actually convey the meaning of the scene, which is why the role of humans is still absolutely necessary.

Yet, anxieties concerning AI continue to plague the translation industry, and may result in changes to subtitling in the future. Hollywood actresses Demi Moore and Reese Witherspoon have both come out in favour of AI, with the latter even stating that “it’s so, so important that women are involved in AI because it will be the future of filmmaking”. AI tools continue to improve, and it is difficult to predict the accuracy of both Witherspoon’s statement and the concerns felt by translators, but the reality is that AI usage is already commonplace in filmmaking, from editing to script-writing and more. AI dubbing is also prevalent, with new software able to move actors’ mouths to fit speech in other languages. Controversy arose last year when generative AI was found to have been used to translate speech from English to Hungarian in The Brutalist – I, for one, am pleased that the Academy has since cracked down on AI-generated content in film, but I do worry about the future opportunities for translators in film, as well as for actors who do actually speak foreign languages.

While it is easier than ever to watch films entirely in English, are we missing something by neglecting their original languages? I think that it is important to note that my choice of film in Stockholm was heavily influenced by which ones had English subtitles listed as available. I do not think that cinemas in other countries should bow down to the English language at all, but English speakers may be surprised to realise just how much they can understand without subtitles, and how thought-provoking the result may be. Maybe if I had the guts for it at the time, I would have complemented my Swedish journey with a piece of local culture, and learned something beyond ‘engelska’.

Far from wanting to sound pretentious, I want you to understand that subtitles – both their existence and a lack of them – do not have to be a barrier to a good cinematic experience. It could be fun, even enriching, to actively try to watch film in a different way, such as by watching a colour film in black and white, or without sound. It almost feels like a reinvention of the creativity that comes with watching a silent film in the present day, where a chosen musical accompaniment can completely change our perspective. Watching Murnau’s silent Nosferatu on Wikipedia (yes, you can do that) was a very different experience from, say, the live organ accompaniment to the Oxford Festival of the Arts’ screening of The Cabinet of Dr Caligari at Magdalen Chapel.

There may be limits to this approach, however. Maybe the screenplay of How to Be Normal and the Oddness of the Other World did a lot of heavy lifting, with psychedelic visuals conveying the psychological focus of the film – although the Ed Sheeran poster on main character Pia’s wall completely threw me off, and made me worry more about the state of British cultural exports than her deteriorating mental condition. Ginger singers aside, my point still stands that even without subtitles, foreign-language films can be thoroughly enjoyed.