Sheldonian Theatre Video Transcript
0:07 The Sheldonian Theatre is at the heart of the University of Oxford, where every student passes through to matriculate and graduate.
0:22 Here is the stage for annual academic ceremonies, from Encaenia to the meetings of the Congregation, the University's governing body.
0:31 Yet this unique building is over 350 years old.
0:37 It has been the site of revels, concerts and crucial moments in the history of women's education.
0:45 The Sheldonian Theatre was built on the initiative of Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1663 until his death in 1677.
0:55 A former warden of All Souls College, he donated 1,000 pounds in 1664 towards the establishment of a theatre in order to separate ‘the domains of God and Apollo’.
1:04 Sheldon wanted to move the Oxford Act out of the University Church of Saint Mary's.
1:15 A forerunner of Encaenia, the ceremony saw the granting of honorary degrees alongside musical performances, travelling players and mocking satirical speeches.
1:27 Sheldon deemed these proceedings to be inappropriate for a church and wanted a dedicated space for secular university ceremonies.
1:36 Coming after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, it also provided the first opportunity for the university to experiment in the new Baroque architectural style which had swept across continental Europe.
1:49 Sheldon had been a royalist during the English Civil War, staying with Charles the First's court at Oxford and acting as an intermediary with Cromwell's parliamentarians.
2:00 During the interregnum of Cromwell's Commonwealth, Sheldon kept up with the latest developments in philosophy and theology, reading Thomas Hobbes, the French freethinker Pierre Gassendi and the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher.
2:15 Always loyal to the Crown, Sheldon met with Charles the Second the day after he landed at Dover on the 25th of May 1660.
2:24 In return, he was made Bishop of London in the same year and then elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury in 1663.
2:33 He was committed to religious conformity, which probably influenced his desire to separate university occasions from Saint Mary's and have their own dedicated space, a scheme already mooted by his old friend and a predecessor at Canterbury, William Lord.
2:50 The young architect Christopher Wren was commissioned to design the theatre and he produced a model which was displayed at the Royal Society in 1663.
3:00 Sheldon had hoped that his initial 1000 pounds gift would be matched by other benefactors, but none came forward and by September 1665 he undertook to provide the money for the whole building.
3:14 He gave 12,239 pounds for its construction and another 2000 pounds for a maintenance fund.
3:23 The lease for the site required the removal of seven widows’ cottages for which, in exchange for the leasehold, the university agreed to pay 7 pounds twice a year to a small charity, a payment which continues to this day.
3:37 Sheldon's interest in the latest developments in Europe probably encouraged him to patronize Wren, an architect who embraced a newly classicizing style.
3:47 The theatre was designed by Christopher Wren between 1664 and 1669.
3:53 Informed by classical and Baroque architecture, the Sheldonian anticipated Wren's later masterpiece at Saint Paul's and his buildings for the monarchy.
4:05 In 1664, Wren was primarily known as the civilian professor of astronomy at Oxford, a post to which he had been elected in 1661.
4:14 A founding member of the Royal Society, he was close with Robert Boyle, John Wilkins and other leading natural philosophers of the Restoration.
4:24 At this time, architecture was not yet a separate profession in England, but was open to those educated in both classical design and what would now be termed structural engineering.
4:37 Wren's first building was the Chapel for Pembroke College, Cambridge, which he designed over the winter of 1662 to 1663.
4:46 With the Sheldonian, his brief was to design a theatre that could stage academic ceremonies, concerts and performances.
4:54 It needed to accommodate the members of the university in a grandeur which would announce a continuity with the England of Charles the First, while acting as a showcase for the latest classicizing developments.
5:06 And finally, Sheldon wanted provision to be made for the University Press, which was housed in an unsuitable space at Convocation House adjoining the Divinity School.
5:17 Wren had been unable to travel to the Italian peninsula during the Civil War and subsequent Commonwealth.
5:23 Instead, he relied on engravings of classical architecture, such as the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, to inform him.
5:32 Crucial to his work were Palladio's prints of northern Italian villas and Inigo Jones's designs for the Queen's House at Greenwich, the neoclassical portico at Saint Paul's Cathedral and the palace at Whitehall.
5:47 At Oxford at the time, the only examples of architecture influenced by ancient Rome were the South porch of the University Church with its twisted columns, and the strange vernacular of Brasenose College's library, which mixed Gothic and classical architectural details.
6:05 For the Sheldonian, open-air theatre in England was impractical from a climactic standpoint, and so Wren needed to design a ceiling which covered the D-shaped plan without disrupting the audience's view.
6:18 Wren devised a system of roof trusses which spanned 70 feet, making it a landmark in English engineering.
6:26 The wooden structure was to be concealed by an elaborate painted ceiling by Robert Streater.
6:32 Roman theatres were protected from the weather by large awnings supported by cords, which here are represented by a network of gilded braids.
6:42 Streater was the sergeant painter to King Charles the Second and had been shaped by the art of the Italian Baroque.
6:50 He was known for painting the Chapel at All Souls and the Royal Palace at Whitehall.
6:56 The Sheldonian ceiling is composed of 32 canvas panels attached together showing allegorical figures perched on clouds as they part to reveal the sky above.
7:07 It shows the triumph of Truth and Learning over Envy, Rapine and Ignorance.
7:14 Here, as in a baroque church, interior and exterior is brought into perceptual confusion as putti swirl above the audience and the teal blue sky contrasts with the dark, violent clouds.
7:29 The painting’s implicit message is that with the restoration of the monarchy, the university is once again unfettered and the arts of peace can now flourish with the figures of Envy and Ignorance fallen from the sky.
7:44 Wren, though, did not feel beholden to his Roman sources.
7:48 Instead of a stage against the flat southern wall, he reverses the focus towards the semi-circular side with the Chancellor's chair.
7:57 In a further reference to Roman antiquity, Ren incorporated the symbol of the fasces, bundles of rods wrapped around an axe emerging from lion's heads.
8:08 They were symbols of Roman authority, here adapted to come out from the elaborate boxes inhabited by the two proctors of the university. These boxes are now no longer used.
8:22 The true façade of the Sheldonian faces the Divinity School from which members of the university process for graduations and Encaenia.
8:31 This sophisticated essay in classical architectural language has Corinthian columns on the ground level with pilasters above, which intersect with a restless pediment that reaches across the building's front.
8:45 It was probably intended that a series of columns and pilasters would continue around the rest of the polygonal exterior, but Sheldon's budget wouldn't stretch that far.
8:55 The whole building cost 2.4 million pounds in today's money.
9:01 Around the Sheldonian's exterior were displayed the collection of antiquities formerly owned by Thomas Howard, second Earl of Arundel, which he had given to the University in 1667.
9:13 These sculptures provided a public open-air display of ancient Roman sculpture, which was subsequently moved to the Ashmolean Museum in the mid-19th century, where they still are to this day.
9:26 Alongside these Roman sculptures were depictions of Sheldon, Charles the Second as a Roman emperor, and James Butler, Duke of Ormond, Chancellor of the university.
9:37 The decorative schema proposed that the restoration had brought about a new era of cultural eminence equivalent to the early Roman Empire.
9:47 So, the Sheldonian Theatre represents an important early example of Baroque architecture in England.
9:53 It anticipates Wren’s later developments as one of the nation's preeminent architects, while the theatres use of painting and sculpture speaks to the political aspirations of the university after the turmoil of civil war and the Commonwealth.
10:13 The Sheldonian’s elaborate opening ceremony was spread over 2 days, the 9th-10th of July 1669, running from 11:00 in the morning until 7:00 at night.
10:25 John Evelyn recorded in his diary that as part of the occasion a Dr South gave a very long speech ‘and not without some malicious and indecent reflections on the Royal Society as underminers of the University, which was very foolish and untrue’.
10:42 On the second day, Evelyn notes, ‘the Terrae Filius or Universitie bouffoone, entertaind the Auditorie with a tedious, abusive, sarcastical rhapsodie, much unbecoming the gravity of the Universitie’.
10:56 The Terrae Filius featured regularly in the Oxford Act. The role was usually taken by an undergraduate student who was given license to speak freely without official repercussion, although there are records of speeches which were so offensive that the Terrae Filius was attacked afterwards.
11:14 Speeches sometimes saw students expelled or even arrested and taken to Oxford's prison.
11:21 The Oxford Act became notorious for such bad behaviour, with the poet Alicia D’anvers in 1693 writing a poem mocking the occasion: “some scholars tippling, others whoring; some from the intruding Proctor scampering.”
11:38 The university, uncomfortable at the Oxford Act becoming a public disturbance, sought to avoid having it all together.
11:45 The Act was held only three times in the 18th century, in 1703, 1713 and 1733, with the university claiming that there weren't enough honorands or that the political context was too incendiary.
11:59 The Oxford Act was then replaced by Encaenia, in the hope of a more orderly occasion.
12:06 Encaenia continues to this day, still held in Latin and resplendent with ritual and archaic dress, while honouring the latest achievements in the Arts and Sciences.
12:17 It marks the conclusion of the academic year and sees the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, the heads of houses and those being granted honorary degrees take part in a procession and listen to a series of speeches in Latin, reflecting on the past year.
12:30 As a place where the university gathers as a body, the ceremonies throughout the decades provide a reflection of a changing institution.
12:44 The first black African to graduate within the Sheldonian Theatre was Christian Cole.
12:50 Born in Sierra Leone as the adopted son of a clergyman, his grandfather had been enslaved.
12:56 Cole obtained his degree from Oxford in 1873 and was subsequently called to the bar at Inner Temple in 1883, becoming the first black African to practice law in an English court.
13:09 This small paper model of the Sheldonian Theatre from around 1820 and now in the Ashmolean Museum, show students crowding outside of the doors trying to get inside.
13:21 It represents the sometimes hectic atmosphere that events that the Sheldonian could create, frequently reproduced in the Victorian press.
13:30 Speeches by significant Victorian politicians could lead to disorder. When the then Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone delivered the first Remains lecture in 1892, the lecture was so popular that hundreds of people had to be turned away from the Sheldonian, choking the streets, leading to windows being damaged in the shops along Broad Street.
13:51 While women could study at Oxford from 1879 with the foundation of Lady Margaret Hall, St. Anne's College and Somerville College, women could not obtain degrees and thus were excluded from the graduation ceremonies at the Sheldonian.
14:06 Indeed, a woman was only allowed to view such ceremonies if a man acted as a chaperone.
14:13 It wasn't until the 15th of October 1920 that women were first granted degrees, two years after women over 30 were first granted the vote.
14:22 This historic moment was widely covered in the press and was part of the larger battle in the early decades of the 20th century for women's equal rights.
14:32 In recent decades, honorary graduates have come from across politics, the Arts and academia.
14:39 From the surrealist artist Jean Cocteau being granted an honorary degree to Nelson Mandela in 1997 and Lenny Henry in 2022, the University continues to recognize the highest achievements in different fields.
14:59 The theatre, befitting its roots in Roman performance spaces, has been the backdrop to a great diversity of musical events and concerts.
15:08 Perhaps its most significant moment in music history was in 1733, when The Sheldonian saw the premiere of George Frederick Handel's oratorio Athalia, based on the verse play by Jean Arsene. Chronicling the story of the biblical Queen Athalia, some 1,200 people attended its first performance.
15:29 It had been commissioned by the university itself under the Oxford Act of 1733 to accompany a special graduation ceremony.
15:37 It makes The Sheldonian possibly the last standing building where a Handle oratorio was premiered.
15:44 More recently, a wide variety of productions have been staged in the Sheldonian.
15:50 2022 saw singer-songwriter Katie Melua perform The Silk Roads, a concert of original songs based on stories from the book by Peter Frankopan, written by local young people and Oxford University students, and performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra and University Players.
16:10 Simultaneously, the Sheldonian has become a popular filming venue, with films as diverse as Heaven's Gate, Shadow Lands, Belle and The Favorite all shot here.
16:22 The Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, led by music director Marios Papadopoulos, employs the Sheldonian as their primary concert venue, leading to a broad public programme throughout the year.
16:34 This is complemented by groups like the Oxford Bach Choir, who perform regularly in the theatre.
16:41 The Sheldonian has witnessed countless events and performances over the centuries, but perhaps many peoples’ most personal memories of the theatre come from walking past the Sheldonian and hearing music spilling out into Broad Street, which testifies to the unique role the building plays in the life of the city.