Student theatre strives to be as professional as possible, but the annual garden play offers something unique: permission to have fun. In Trinity Term, as students pivot between the library and Examination Schools, another ritual takes over college quads. Outdoor productions appear across the city, transforming lawns and gardens into temporary stages. For director and producer Magdalena Lacey-Hughes, these productions represent something increasingly rare in Oxford drama: the freedom to be creative without the pressure of being perfect. 

Garden plays are as much a part of Oxford life as exams when the academic year draws to a close. After watching the Queen’s College garden play’s performance of Guys & Dolls on its closing night, I met with its director, Lacey-Hughes, expecting to discuss the challenges of outdoor theatre. Instead, our conversation turned to a bigger question: why does Oxford drama take itself so seriously? 

After arriving at Oxford eager to throw herself into student theatre, Lacey-Hughes found the Oxford drama scene surprisingly difficult to navigate. “I never really got my foot in the door until Trinity of first-year,” where she choreographed Fiddler on the Roof, the Queen’s garden play that year. “I think I just really didn’t understand how student drama worked here. It was very confusing because it is super decentralised.” It was through subsequent productions inspired by this one that Lacey-Hughes met George Robson, and the pair collaborated to launch Crazy Child Productions in Michaelmas.  

Though her passion for the innumerable opportunities offered by Oxford’s extensive drama scene is tangible when she talks about her projects, she is candid about the anxiety which surrounds the field. Students are deeply invested in producing high-quality work, but that ambition can create its own culture: feedback from Oxbridge Onstage last term noted that “Oxford’s drama is very serious and often quite dark.”

For Lacey-Hughes, part of the issue lies in Oxford’s fixation with professionalism. “I think it comes with the slight pretentious air that everything here has,” she reflects. “There is this real emphasis on putting on plays that have huge legacies so that they can reinterpret themselves.” Over the past year, she has noticed the same impulse when people discuss production companies. “People ask ‘what do you do?’ and you would respond ‘we try to make student drama as professional as possible’. In reality, that is not achievable.”

It’s rather ironic here as Lacey-Hughes is hardly arguing from the sidelines: Guys & Dolls operated on a budget comparable to some Oxford Playhouse productions, complete with a live orchestra and professional technical support. Yet what stood out most was not the scale of the production but its atmosphere, as audience members were pulled onstage, handed props, heckled, and encouraged to become part of the performance. The result was collective enjoyment shared by the case and audience alike. 

She attributes her talent for generating fun to her own experience and familiarity with different aspects of productions. “You want to expect a lot from people, but you also have to respect that they have a lot to do alongside rehearsals.” Cast members balanced the production with choirs, rowing, journalism, and exams. Drawing on her role as Welfare Officer for Oxford University Drama Society (OUDS), she believes that “respecting time and making people feel valued in the space is very important.”

What, then, prevents student theatre from embracing that same sense of playfulness? For Lacey-Hughes, the problem is a culture: “I do think that there is a slight lack of understanding and appreciation for things that are just inherently creative.” Looking at the prevalence of tragedies and dramatic reinterpretations of established classics, she argues that Oxford often mistakes seriousness for artistic value. “We think things are only impressive when people are able to cry onstage,” she says, “rather than when they are able to make you laugh.”

Part of this seriousness stems from the structure of Oxford drama itself. For newcomers, success is often less dependent on talent or funding than understanding an unusually decentralised system. Pressure mounts when there is, in fact, a ‘right way’ to produce student drama. “It’s very confusing – you have to know it to be a part of it,” Lacey-Hughes explains. Production companies sit at the centre of that system. Prior to each term they bid for venues, apply for funding, and build reputations over time. The official OUDS advice makes one thing clear: without a Student Production Company, you cannot apply for funding. In theory, anyone can establish one, but the reality is that the necessary experience, contacts, and institutional knowledge often accumulate within established groups, making it easier for some productions to succeed over others. 

It is partly this culture which inspired Crazy Child Productions, the company that Lacey-Hughes runs alongside George Robson.  Far from the rigidity of other production companies, their company is characterised by an intention rather than a theme. “We are just kind of doing everything really,” she laughs. Their productions range from canonical student dramas such as The Glass Menagerie to student-written and translated work. Lacey-Hughes grins as she tells me about a recent production, Stories From an Abandoned Warehouse, “it was actually the first time Stories has ever been staged in the UK.”

Reflecting on their company’s purpose, she emphasises accessibility: Crazy Child Productions work with students who want to stage a single project without building an entire production company around it. Recent productions have included “some friends who wanted to do one thing and not set up a whole production company,” while Stories was organised by a postgraduate student who did not have the time to establish a whole brand. “We don’t intend to take it out of Oxford,” she says. “We want people to use it and the resources which we have built up.”

The playful nature of garden plays offer escape from these pressures of Oxford theatre. “The pressure is off a bit more,” Lacey-Hughes believes. Freed from some of the expectations attached to studio-based productions, gardens provide space for experimentation: earlier this term, Lady Margaret Hall hosted an unrehearsed performance of Twelfth Night, while St Edmund Hall staged The Harrowing of Hell.26 in a crypt. 

The freedom of garden plays stems partly from their refusal to behave like conventional theatre. “You aren’t going to feel as immersed when it is seven o’clock outside, the sun is setting, there’s a bird over there and you can hear the ambulance on the road.” Rather than undermining the experience, she believes these interruptions create a different relationship between audience and performance. “It is a whole different type of world-building,” she explains, “because the immersion is pretty much shattered.”

That freedom comes at a cost. Outdoor productions are technically demanding. Lacey-Hughes explains the difficulties of hiring an external professional in sound design while the weather itself became a concern. “On the first night our orchestra tent was breaking due to the rain,” she recalls. Such a small team meant that “a lot of that fell to me; I was holding up the tent for around two hours on the Wednesday.”

College regulations can limit staging decisions as well, particularly around audience movement and health-and-safety policies. Yet Lacey-Hughes maintains that these restrictions often produce better creative solutions. “One thing I changed this year was bringing the orchestra into view. I wanted them to be there, and it worked for the show itself having them be appreciated.”

“In some ways, you are allowed more creativity because you have a completely different space to work with, but also colleges are much stricter.” In Guys & Dolls, Queen’s itself becomes part of the performance. “The window is a feature each year – it is the thing to look out for,” she says. This year, she reorientated the stage so that the window was on display the whole time; when actors were not using it as part of the set, residents were using it as, well, a window. “Initially I was annoyed,” she laughs. “Then I was like, ‘fine’. We should have started charging them for a ticket.”

The same elements which make garden plays less immersive also make them creatively exciting. “Even a black-box theatre is limited in certain ways,” she argues. “That is what makes creativity really powerful, when you use it well and when you have limitations. You cannot be creative when you have all the opportunities available to you.”

Perfectionism and professionalism are factoring pressures in student societies beyond theatre. In an urge to create portfolios and eagerness to enter industries immediately upon graduation, the rush to seem accomplished appears to overshadow the earnest and crucial learning experience of student societies. In a busy Michaelmas ahead, Crazy Child Productions does not seem to be slowing down: they are bidding for the Oxford Playhouse an O’Reilly show as you read, meanwhile two first-year students have already booked the Burton Taylor Studio. So what do they want their production company to be known for, for their audiences to take away? After a moment’s consideration, Lacey-Hughes responds, “‘You can’t be everything before your time’ is a really cringe answer, but that is definitely part of it.”

As the academic year draws to a close, the most anticipated list in all of Oxford is finally here!

This year’s BNOC nomination form received 331 responses over the course of ten days, with the final response coming in just 14 seconds before the form closed (you’ve got to admire the procrastination of an Oxford student). The form allowed three nominations per submission, and nearly 350 people from across the University were nominated at least one time.

Unsurprisingly, the most nominated category in this list was the Oxford Union. There were 221 nominations in which an affiliation with the Union proved to be a person’s strongest category. Not far behind was the category of ‘Other’. While this list does tend to get a reputation for platforming the union hacks of the year (and in some ways this year’s list is no different), it is interesting how many characters around Oxford defy a specific sort of categorisation. It should also be noted that a few people were nominated for different categories over time, speaking to both the fact that certain societies attract people with similar interests (political societies and the Oxford Union being a particularly strong pairing) and also the perhaps over-extended nature of the extremely motivated Oxford student.

The category which received the fewest number of individual nominations was Sport, sitting at only 45. This might have to do with many sports taking place at a college level, while this list has a broader university-wide scope. Journalism was only slightly higher, though six members of Cherwell’s own senior editorial team (including EICs) were nominated, alongside a handful of former editors. 

But being a BNOC is generally more than just an affiliation with a specific society – many people are in the Oxford Union, but only some become elevated to the status of ‘union hack’. It takes a certain kind of personality or ambition to rise to the more recognisable of the close to 26,800 students affiliated with the University. At the very least, they probably needed to be following Cherwell on Instagram or have an acquaintance at least tangentially involved who might have shared our survey link. Beyond the broad categories, survey respondents also answered an open-ended question about why a person was, in fact, a BNOC. Responses varied from a specific list of someone’s qualifications to the very general “everything” (given as a reason for six nominations). 

But what turned a nominee into a BNOC on the list? For some, it was the simple act of responding to our email request for a description and photo after initially sorting through the data; we have to have enough names to fill out the list, after all. Other components taken into account included the role of the nominee within Oxford’s university society at large and, of course, the number of nominations received (though we attempted to look a bit critically at responses which seemed particularly like a spam or ‘hacked’ nomination).

This year’s list also reflects a tumultuous time for Oxford students in the limelight. While you may recognise some headshots on this list from previous years, or indeed from previous Cherwell articles, we’ve also tried to change things up a bit. Hopefully, this list provides both some familiar and new faces, no matter how involved you might be with some of the more public-facing Oxford societies.

1. George Abaraonye

Univ PPE, former Union President-Elect, perpetual Oxford figure with headphones. Returned from rustication to collect his BNOC crown, and signed off his acceptance email with “toodles”. 

2. Arwa Elrayess

Oxford Union’s first Arab woman president, who arrived promising stability and delivered anything but that. Cherwell is happy to see a woman in male-dominated fields. 

3. Overheard at Oxford 

Self-proclaimed reformed ex-Cherwell hater. Proud to say that the “masses still flock to hear the propaganda”. Oxford’s most un-anonymous anonymous Instagram account. 

4. Harry Aldridge 

New College PPE, Media Soc president, 93% Club president, Union Secretary, and subject of a JCR no-confidence motion. Running Oxford’s institutions one at a time, the last one pushed back. 

5. Sanaa Pasha 

Sanaa wants us to make it clear that although she describes herself as a ‘dramatist’, it’s not in a pretentious way. Though, as OUDs President, co-founder of Riptide Studio, and a writer and director, it’s safe to say she’s earned a bit of self-importance. 

6. Roxi Rusu 

STANNER with a Google Calendar that would give a tutor palpitations. Rows, regattas, reggaeton nights, and international security. Doing it all for the joie de vivre, apparently. 

7. Agastya Rao 

Marked out by a distinctive yellow rubber duck in his pocket, Agastya has dedicated his two years at Oxford to such serious pursuits as the Keble Brick Challenge and the Oxford Sign Challenge (no, it’s not a thing).

8. R. O. N. 

Re-Open Nominations. Oxford’s most principled and committed candidate, never wins, never quits, technically running for everything. We salute the consistency. 

9. Jessica Maxine Wood

POV: You’ve been nominated for the world’s most prestigious BNOC list. Instagram’s favourite Aussie Oxford ‘Lawfluencer’, Jessica is known for her heavily-vignetted dark academia edits of damp streets and overworked Rad Cam occupants.

10. Tresor Nsengiyumva

Queen’s PPE fresher who “got weird for a week, got some spring weeks, and then started running for the Union for bants”. First-year energy at its most unhinged and admirable. 

11. Esme Somerside Gregory 

There’s a good chance Esme is the only Physics student to (ever?) make the BNOC list. Writer and director of the OUDs National Tour play, and Co-Pres of Oxford Physics Gender Equity Network, it’s impossible to walk down the street with Esme without her being stopped by someone she knows every five minutes. 

12. Gilon Fox 

A familiar face in OUDs, having ended up as Treasurer last year, and co-running Tiptoe Productions, Gilon is best known for his Oxford Playhouse Performances. You might also recognise him from Fight Night at the town hall, where he competed as ‘Gilon “60 Seconds” Fox’, and didn’t last very long.

13. Hussain’s

The Platonic ideal of the Oxford kebab van. The light at the end of the suffocating tunnel we call ‘Bridge’. 

14. Zagham Farhan

Zagham was nominated for heading “one of the most irrelevant political societies at Oxford”. That didn’t really narrow it down, but you can also spot him delivering one of his “near weekly speeches” in the Union, if you have entirely exhausted your will to live.

15. Benedict Masters 

Statement attributable to an Oxford Union spokesperson: “The nominee the Editors-in-Chief have a sweet spot for. Union Director of Press, who can be found anywhere but in Oxford. Has gracefully accepted the title ‘Socially Acceptable Boris Johnson’.”

16. Harriet Dolby

LMH historian, OUCA President, who somehow made Jeremy Hunt the least controversial person she invited this term. Spent Trinity filling rooms with people, the country has largely stopped listening to. Impressive logistically, whatever you think of the guests.

17. Ezana Betru

Director and co-founder of Riptide Studio, Ezana can be recognised from innumerable plays. His lead role in a Playhouse production next term will be his 15th show in Oxford, which means he’s either failing his degree, or a time-traveller. Cherwell has launched an investigation. 

18. Jerome Pailing

Being tall isn’t necessarily a personality trait, but it certainly does help make John’s JCR President Jerome easy to spot across the bar. Cherwell commends his enviable ability to make a room full of men instantly insecure, as they mumble “height doesn’t matter”. 

19. Anita Okunde

Former President of the Oxford Union, Anita describes herself as “literally just a girl trying to survive finals”. Her startup Vox Populi Collective, meanwhile, promises to train up the next generation of hacks (read: material for Jevelyn).

20. Sam Gosmore 

Another high-ranking thespian, Sam has been in 14 OUDs productions during his two years at Oxford, and will be leading two Playhouse shows next term. His most common pose, in his own words, is to “stare meaningfully into the middle distance under stage lights”. Profoundly affecting, we’re sure.

21. Catherine Oyinkan Kola Balogun 

From SU President-Elect to editor at a ‘paper’ that shall not be named, Catherine’s litany of extra-curriculars makes a certain no-conned JCR Pres look lazy. Catherine has “ended up involved in a bit of everything at Oxford”, and her frequent Instagram presence ensures her BNOC-hood.

22. David Quan 权丁文

Wolfson MSc, podcaster, future SU president for postgrads. Insisted that BNOC stands for “Big Names, One Community”. Many fellow nominees would beg to disagree. 

23. Saara Lunawat

St John’s law fresher, running for Union secretary uncontested. Either extremely talented or extremely intimidating. We suspect both. Also wrote for the ‘Oxford Studebnt’.

24. Euan Willis

A fresher who can reliably be found drinking his way through Union events and Oxford’s political societies, Euan is pretty much the archetypal OLC hack, and received one of his nominations for “being a lad”. Right. 

25. Macaulay Fergusson

One half of Wadham Entz, Macaulay has spent his first year trying to make up for the abysmal reputation of the college bar. Looks like he’s been having fun, but Cherwell would question whether spamming Instagram stories with AI slop is what Dorothy would have wanted.

26. ChatWSam

Sam’s claim to BNOC fame is “loving formals and Oxford college life”. Best known for his reels rating Oxford formals, and for arranging ‘An Evening with STP. Reviews’, he is sure to pop up on your suggested reels when you have an essay due in an hour.

27. NightSchool

Laughing in the face of Finals, Nahom Lemma and Ethan Penny, the DJs and founders of NightSchool, have gone from strength to strength, now a familiar part of the college ball landscape for those who failed to procure a more original performer.

28. Christina Robinson

The woman who paints everyone’s nails in Spoons, runs the freshers group chat, and has visited nearly every college. Tragically, has not made it to Queen’s or Pembroke. Someone figure this out. 

29. Cherwell EiCs 

Oxford’s oldest independent student newspaper (did you know we’re IPSO-regulated?) Somehow still letting the editors nominate themselves. Standards are slipping. 

30. The Isis EiCs

Oxford’s other literary institution. Classier than us, allegedly. We’re sure the BNOC list would be much better illustrated had it been organised by them.