The Summit in the Alleyway

Every city has its own pact between it and those who live there; each one, individually. Oxford, but for a few, those who stay become part of it, is haughty and peremptory: it opens its gates, its college courtyards, its libraries, to those who give to it their intellect and consent to carry its standard. The place is pompous and full of it but if you believe in the myth you won't fail to be moved, rather like enjoying the company of a likable braggart. As I rode my bicycle into town for some much-needed repairs I sailed down Broad Street (or rather, wobbled; my front wheel had come loose) past the Sheldonian in the late-afternoon sun and wondered how I could desert this place that had been so good to me; it had, quite honestly, offered me little in the way of learning, but much in the way of redemption.

London is another beast altogether. Whether or not you drink the Kool-Aid, Oxford advertises what it's all about quite openly: welcome to the seat of learning; this way up the ivory tower, mind your step and wipe your feet please. I'm sure London can pull up and boast of a Higher Purpose just as quickly; in fact, it can pull up just about anything. Former hub of empire, centre of government, hub of trade and finance; the city is multitudinous, and there are no gates. You enter through an alleyway and emerge into a row of Georgian mews and wait for a definition to present itself to you, the way information packets are handed out to freshers. What is this city about?

At first glance it appears to be centred entirely around money: making it, spending it; it whirls as it is flushed away like the crowd that disappears into the bowels of the underground at half past five. If you walk down King's Road on a Saturday afternoon it's gorgeous and lush, as beautiful as it is inaccessible, like the impeccably dressed woman who looks me up and down with that imperceptible smile on her face: I'm from another world than yours. I imagine it to be a world devoid of those wire-frame racks which lurk like an out-of-season Christmas tree in hundreds of thousands of flats across the country, festooned with knickers and dishtowels. But just as I've found that window-shopping in Chelsea is a perfectly pleasurable pursuit in itself, I think there's a third response to looking at the convertibles whizzing past and the terraced apartments in Kensington, which is neither that of feeling like the little match girl or setting one's jaw with grim determination that all this, too, shall be mine, mine! one day: the simple, quiet realisation of the fact that this is not my world. But I am looking forward to the London that will become mine, by discovery, by creation, in the way that though I will never be a member of All Souls, I do have my favourite seat at the Bodleian.

There is a pleasure in performing something perfectly, like playing a piano piece one knows by heart or executing a well-loved recipe; but there is another pleasure in discovery, in learning, in mastering what one does not know. London was, among other things, the starting-point for geographical expeditions during the age of exploration. There is a certain irony in the fact that perhaps the best way to get to know London is to approach it as would an adventurer, turning the corner into an alleyway that yields unexpected delights, and then to plant a flag, marking it as part of one's own private empire within the city.

Wadham Gardens On a Summer's Day

'Take with you a ground rug or folding chairs,' we were instructed the day before the performance of Romeo and Juliet in the gardens of Wadham College, which I have to admit (intercollegiate rivalry notwithstanding) is one of the prettiest colleges in Oxford, and its lawn were bright and green and shimmery in the afternoon sun. The performance did not take place in the hallowed space of the centre college quad, of course, but in the garden to the right of the main buildings; against the backdrop of a wall, a 70s Volkswagen van and a tent had been parked, to emphasize the idea of Shakespeare being 'on tour', and which served as the backstage for the square of wooden planks that had been laid down. The idea that the six actors simply piled into the rickety old VW camper and meandered away down the motorway to their next touring gig was somewhat mitigated by a gleaming, comfortable modern bus parked nearby.

It was a small, intimate crowd of theatregoers in a lazy summer mood, and sweet alcoholic drinks were being served; thankfully, they opted for a play everyone knew by heart, it was difficult to imagine mustering the focus to get through, say, Henry VI Part III while semi-drunk on sugary Pimms. As the play moved into the second act the audience, especially those sitting on the ground, were perceptibly more and more horizontal, and the actors glistened in the summer heat. Or perhaps Juliet was really feeling the potion.

Despite the obvious professionalism of the performance, there was something very local (not amateurish; local, more so than if it had been on the stage of a West End theatre) about the fact that Shakespeare was born just a few miles to the north and it was first performed fifty miles to the east; and the garden setting, taking away not just the dimmed, fan-shaped theatre and the proscenium, but the very structure of a theatre in the form of a building, was a wonderful reminder of how 'theatre' is about an agreement between the players and the audience: we say entertain us, and they do; they say, this is Verona, and we believe them. Oh, and the play, of course. For a summer afternoon in Oxford, this play was just the thing.