You return to your college at night, after anything between a day of work and an evening of cavorting. The view admits the welcoming glow of the porter’s lodge and the reassuring presence of a porter behind the reception desk. Past the gates, you enter the secluded safety of the inner-college dark, smelling now of grass and early summer cold. The perfect picture of an Oxford homecoming.

Late one evening, I paid a visit to John, Somerville College’s night porter of 19 years. As he let me through the gate, he was curious about the article. “We don’t get much attention, us night porters”, he explained. The warmth of the lodge fanned my face. His colleague was out patrolling the premises. Between the two of them, they are responsible for everyone on site from eleven at night to seven in the morning. The students, engrossed by their term-time miseries, appreciate their presence only occasionally: when they stumble into the lodge bleary, intoxicated, tearful, or lacking keys. For many, the night lodge exists as a background certainty, noticed chiefly in moments of crisis, vulnerability, or inconvenience.

Most Oxford colleges and accommodation sites have porters on duty around the clock. Since March 2025, every college with a porter’s lodge manned overnight is in the University’s Safe Lodge scheme, providing support and ensuring safe return for any student seeking help at night, regardless of their original college. So for a majority of college residents, 24/7 lodge availability is a matter of course. Colleges like Somerville, Hertford, and Oriel employ permanent night porters, while at others, porters work variable hours on a rotating day-or-night shift system. St John’s College told Cherwell that the College recently updated shift arrangements to a three-on/three-off rota pattern, following feedback from the lodge team. This is to ensure porters have structured rest periods and sufficient time to adjust and recover from nocturnal work.

Overnight staffing is neither universal nor standardised across colleges. Working hours vary, and pay is not centrally regulated by the University, in a city currently ranked amongst the most expensive in the UK to live in. Some lodges see eight to nine-hour night shifts, which John at Somerville describes as relatively comfortable compared to his previous employment, as compared to the weekly twelve-hour shift rotations at colleges like St John’s and Worcester. A number of colleges offer porters a Grade 3 to 4 salary, some with an additional monthly night workers’ allowance. Regent’s Park College, which employs casual evening porters on select days of the week, lists in 2025 hourly portering rates of £12.60 (lower than the 2025-26 Oxford Living Wage, at £13.16) with holiday pay and meal allowance. The college’s night porters are available from Wednesday to Saturday, with junior Deans on call on the remaining nights of the week. When asked about the particulars of the night security system, the College declined to comment. These disparities reflect a broader feature of Oxford’s collegiate structure: welfare and security systems often depend on the budgets and priorities of individual colleges.

What happens in a night? A shift at the lodge involves more than dealing with late-night mischief and drunken mishaps, and tending to students who have accidentally locked themselves out of their own rooms. The role combines security work, customer service, emergency response, and informal welfare provision. Night porters are first responders to any emergencies that arise, from fire and security alarms, to medical emergencies, calls for assistance, and emotional distress. First-aid training is usually mandatory or provided by the college. Front-of-house business proceeds as during the day, for any student or guest arrivals. Like John and his colleague at Somerville, night porters working in pairs take turns carrying out random security patrols, though for his first 13 years, John was the College’s only night porter. Some night porters are also asked to clear litter while doing site checks. Inside the lodge, they are vigilant of anything out of the ordinary as they monitor the CCTV screens.

Students often most clearly notice the integral role of night porters when they are no longer there. After University College removed its overnight lodge staffing on the grounds of financial limitations in the 2021-22 academic year, JCR condemnation and further discussions with the college’s Governing Body brought it back in 2024. The common perception remains that the overnight lodge is the staple feature when it comes to feeling safe at Oxford.

John drew attention to the fact that colleges’ increasing emphasis on mental health in recent years is reflected in night porter duties as well. This means that porters are instructed to stay attentive to signs of distress among students and follow set procedures if anything raises concern. “If a student is having a mental health issue, there’s 100% support there. If we spot a student not looking too happy or a bit tearful, maybe didn’t want to speak to us, we could refer it on to the welfare team”.

Especially during exam time, many students pass through the lodge visibly struggling with stress. Porters ensure the lodge is a grounding, approachable space for the student body, and that, when needed, the appropriate resources are provided, and wellness information is relayed confidentially. Night porters are among a number of out-of-hours workers at Oxford who provide welfare support to people at their most vulnerable. In practice, they frequently act as students’ first point of human contact during moments of panic, loneliness, intoxication, or distress. Colleges without permanent overnight staffing at the lodge often choose to raise awareness of the local Samaritans and Safe Haven service, and the Oxford Nightline, run by student volunteers.

Recounting notable incidents in the past, John found that they had been rare enough during his 19 years at Somerville to list with ease. The college encountered a burglar only once, who broke in by scaling one of the walls, and managed to go as far as the principal’s lodgings before the night porters caught him. In another episode, an abusive boyfriend had to be forcefully removed from college grounds. He had been acting aggressively towards his girlfriend and her friends, and grew violent while being escorted out. John got punched, and had to punch him back. Other than these, the occasional intoxicated student needs to be talked down. Some return to the lodge the next day, embarrassed and apologetic.

But overall: “19 years, I don’t think that’s too bad”! Generally, troublemakers among a new cohort of students can be identified within the first three weeks. The porters concentrate on easing them into the way the college works, and after about five to six weeks, “It’s all happy families again. College life goes on”. John said the priority is simple: to keep the place secure and everybody safe. “You deal with it, thinking on your feet, and it gets you and the College through the night”.

More than burglaries and abusive boyfriends, the COVID-19 pandemic stuck in John’s memory as the most difficult event in all his time working as Somerville’s night porter.

“COVID was just a nightmare… It really was hard work.” It’s a well-documented experience for many non-academic staff at Oxford. In 2020, roughly half of Keble’s non-academic staff were furloughed, and the College went into consultation on a redundancy programme as a result of major pandemic-induced revenue losses. Across Oxford institutions, frontline staff found themselves responsible not only for enforcing emergency rules but also absorbing the frustration and hostility those rules produced. In early 2022, Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) introduced body cameras for its staff after a 125% rise in violent incidents during the pandemic, launching the ‘There’s No Excuse’ initiative in a call for the respect and protection of hospital workers.

The unhappy pandemic-year undergraduates faced by the porters had the excuse of being denied their promised university life. “The COVID intake of freshers was horrendous”, John recalled. The students were resentful of being confined to their ‘bubbles’. The policy was put in place as part of the College’s social distancing measures, and enforced by porters who often bore the brunt of that resentment. Students sometimes grew even more unruly when porters reminded them it was against the regulations to mix outside their bubbles. “They were very rebellious students…They didn’t seem to think it was a risk”. But John, after years of shepherding Oxford’s blithely demanding youth, is sympathetic.

“It was sad because those students never really got the experience of the Oxford University situation, as their predecessors or the ones that followed on afterwards, because everything was so restricted. I felt sorry for them, and I could understand the way they were reacting. But it just went on for a whole year. They tried to rule the roost… but of course you couldn’t let them do that, there were things in place for a reason”. And once the pandemic had passed, “It was like they were different students completely!”

As a porter who only works nights, John is candid about the relative invisibility of his role. “You could work here for 13 years, and no one knows you,” he says, recalling how a tutor who had been at the College for many years had come in one morning, greeted him brightly, and asked if John was new.

Still, grappling with dissatisfied young people and distracted teaching staff on a regular basis, John says that he feels well-supported by the college institution, and is happy working here. “You get so many people from different nationalities… and it works. Everything together works”.

“Apart from that COVID situation”, he adds. “That will stick with me until I die”.

St John’s College told Cherwell that it keeps Lodge staffing under regular review, seeing to both staff wellbeing and effective operations. Considering the reactive and ad hoc nature of much of their work, porters are “trained appropriately and aligned to the responsibilities they may encounter in their roles. They are also supported by wider, well-established welfare provisions, including on-site student welfare advisors and an on-call system, ensuring that any situations beyond routine duties are managed safely and appropriately”.

College porters, typically hired directly by the College as permanent staff, report to the Lodge Manager and Domestic Bursar and are embedded into the College’s administrative structure. There has long been a push, however, for all colleges to formally extend the same protection and wage standards to their sub-contracted staff employed in housekeeping, catering, maintenance, and events – arrangements that vary depending on the wealth and policy of individual colleges. The lodge, therefore, sits within a wider conversation about invisible labour at Oxford: the workers responsible for maintaining the University’s daily operations often remain peripheral to its public self-image.

As the sky grows light and early risers trickle out into the streets, the night porter hands over the shift and goes home to family, or into a routine slumber with blackout curtains. Through personal and collective crises, the lodge and the porters are always there. Meanwhile, the collegiate system remains a patchwork of rota structures, pay scales, budget limits, and levels of transparency. “Everything together works”, as John says. That clockwork constancy depends on labour which most students rarely see, but routinely rely upon.

One of the finest traditions of Oxford drama is the summer garden play. Freeing the frenetic energy of the dramatic societies from the limited rehearsal spaces and platforms of Michaelmas and Hillary, Trinity sees the many green spaces of Oxford overcome by hectic preparations for garden plays, as directors experiment with the challenges of performing in an unusual space. With such a proliferation of performances, it also presents the chance for enterprising directors and productions to venture beyond their regular fare and explore less well-known, but potentially no less entertaining, stories.

This year’s Hertford-Mansfield Garden Play was a production of Shakespeare’s The Two Noble Kinsmen, co-written with John Fletcher which was the Bard’s last work before his death in 1616, though it did not appear in print until 1634. It wasreasonably well-known in its time, but has since faded into relative obscurity, only performed rarely and less well-known than its source work, The Knight’s Tale in Geoffery Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. For the sake of the reader, I’ll briefly explain the plot: Theseus, of minotaur slaying fame, is begged by three widowed Queens to intercede against the king of neighbouring Thebes. Theseus concedes, and goes to war, in the process capturing the King of Thebes’ nephews, Arcite and Palamon. All their brave talk of fraternal unity in the face of prison vanishes when they see Hippolyta’s sister, Emilia, and both immediately compete for her affection.

Eventually, all is resolved in a rather tragicomic fashion, but it is rather unlike most Shakespeare in that even in those plays that do tread the line between tragedy and comedy, few slip between the two as frequently as Two Noble Kinsmen. Its opening scene appears to set the play up as a tragedy, whilst its middle section better resembles a comedy; in a Lynchian fashion, after the play’s tragic ending, Morris dancers (who appear earlier in the play) return and do a merry jig. The comedy fits the Mansfield gardens, where the play was performed next to the hulking shadow of the Vere Hamsworth, well. Likewise, the challenging lighting situation, with the gentle afternoon sun of the opening fading into dark sky by the end, lent itself to the tragic development of the play, with the stark white lights used producing stark, dramatic shadows against the bare stone.

This production itself is the work of director Annabelle Higgins and producer Richard Morris, with two choral pieces composed specially for the play courtesy of Owen Robinson. The music does make the play, from its earlier Midsummer Night’s Dream-like feel of fancy to the low, ethereal and deeply unsettling humming from behind the audience as the play reaches its devastating conclusion. Select performances also deserve special mention, amidst the general success of the cast and crew; the eponymous kinsmen, Arcite and Palamon, are played with great flair and distinction. Palamon captures, as Emilia describes, a love-struck morbidity and obsession, whilst Archite’s focus on victory is clearly communicated through clipped tones and a contemplative countenance. Emilia is also exceptionally wellplayed, with several monologues that carefully balance expressing emotion whilst not forgoing the audience’s need to hear what’s being performed.

A few minor flubs occurred, actors missing a few lines and a malfunctioning light set just behind my shoulder. However, with the brevity of time afforded to garden play actors, this shouldn’t be held against them – it is a well performed play given its limited budget, space and time. Performing a lesser-known Shakespeare work was a bold directorial choice, and one that paid off. Equally impressive is the sizable, late run time, with actors performing from 7:30pm until almost 10pm for three days in a row, including a matinee performance on Saturday 9th May.

CW: Rape

What’s stuffier than a perfume shop and more packed than a Lego Store on opening day? It’s the Burton Taylor Studio, and no less so than during the sold out run of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (5th-9th May). In this debut show by Postbox Productions, we are transported to a rundown boarding house where marital dispute, mental torture, and birthday games come together to create a disturbing yet humorous play.

Pinter’s play poses quite the challenge, and directors Marnie Frankel and Lois Avery are scrupulous in every detail (I should know, one of them sat next to me and filled what seemed like half a book with notes on the opening night). The audience is constantly teased with contradictory information. Is it a birthday party? Who is Stanley (Rufus Shutter)? And how Cockney can Goldberg (Will Hamp) go? And, though quite conservative in terms of design, the acting truly brings out the gifts of this play.

The opening brings a convincingly dishevelled Meg (Cait Kremenstein), whose voice and mannerisms are a consistent highlight of the night, fussing over breakfast for her rather resigned husband Petey (Charlie Heath) and Stanley, the sole boarder. Kremenstein, Heath, and Shutter have a lovely dynamic on stage, with subtle changes of tone and character. Humour litters the play, from the hilarious reveal of the trapdoor-cupboard at the start to Meg’s flirty attitude towards Stanley, and the cast allow the energy of these moments to lift up the darker undertones of the play.

Yet things change for Stanley when Goldberg and McCann (Seb Foster) turn up to stay and join Meg in organising his birthday party – but is it actually his birthday? Hamp and Foster offer a wonderful good cop, bad cop duo that is hilarious to watch on stage and blends the serious with the absurd (“All the same, give me a blow!”). Their torrent of lines as they intimidate Stanley serves a good number of gags and their timing is (for the most part) slick. Watching their complete change in manner, demeanour, and accent when dealing with Meg compared to Stanley gives a much-needed release of tension during the play’s darker moments. The pounding of the drum as they circle Stanley like vultures and the quiet intimidation of Petey had me on edge. Trapped inside the tight arms of the BT, you couldn’t escape the tension (or the noise!), but the directors ensure a good balance throughout.

The most well-produced moment of the show was the birthday party itself, where the cast play a thrilling game of Blind Man’s Buff. Lulu (Amelie Rosner), a neighbour of the boarding house, is allowed to shine in this section with her loveably clueless character mirroring the confused state of the audience. The quietness of this scene, as in turn each of the characters is forced to stumble around the stage, was punctured by Lulu’s scream at the end as Stanley attempts to rape her on the table. A harrowing and deeply disturbing moment, the cast handle it exceptionally well.

Nearing the end of the show, and practically sweltering in my jumper (did I mention the heat!?), we watch as Petey gives up a short-lived fight as Stanley is carried away. Quite why and how is for the audience to guess, as is the nature of every character in the play. The reserved character of Petey, the stoney-faced Stanley, the relentlessly positive Meg: all the characters in The Birthday Party are fascinating to watch and analyse, stuck in their sad story. Pinter’s play makes no attempt to glamourise this life, nor provide anyone to sympathise with, rather, one must simply enjoy the absurdity of the play.

One final conversation between Meg and Petey, who now live in a house with no borders, offers a bleak prospect at the end of the play, now devoid of humour. Heath’s impassive Petey contrasts with Kremenstein’s sentimental and unloved Meg at this moment, and it is with Meg’s wistful “I know I was” that we end the show, wishing that we knew anything as certainly as Meg.

Though it messed with my sense of reality, it was a very well assembled production, and the cast offered a promising selection of new Oxford talent. All in all, I am sure this is not the last we have heard of Postbox Productions.