News

John Gay's celebrated "ballad opera", The Beggar's Opera, was written in 1728. These striking wax figures - of Elsie French as Mrs Peachum and Violet Marquesita as Lucy Lockit - were created by Agatha Walker on the basis of a production at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in 1920.

University reputation is the most important factor for academics deciding whether to take jobs in another country - although the small size of European houses is also a consideration for US scholars.

8 March

The University of Oxford has received a multi-million-pound gift for postgraduate humanities study aimed at the world's most promising scholars amid concern that public funding cuts could make such courses the preserve of elite institutions.

1 March

This sculpture by Francis May Favata depicting a child being lifted from the rubble after a bombing stands on the campus of the University of Plymouth, marking the site of one of the UK's worst civilian disasters during the Second World War.