sport. Earning a full palatinate has been described by the university as a 'notoriously difficult' achievement. In 2022 just 12 student athletes received the full award, with a further 53 earning a half-palatinate.
Esports are included in Team Durham through Durham University Esports and Gaming (DUEG) as part of Team Durham. DUEG participates in 12 games, across National Student Esports (NSE) and National University Esports League (NUEL) tournaments.
=== Music and drama ===
The central body for theatre at the university is Durham Student Theatre (DST), with 33 student-run theatre societies as of 2024, including university-wide companies, college-based companies and two Durham Students' Union theatre societies. These perform in the university's Assembly Rooms Theatre, in college venues, and in other venues around Durham, as well as at the Durham Drama Festival, the Durham Fringe Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Since 1975, the university has played host to the Durham Drama Festival which celebrates new theatrical and dramatic material written by Durham students.
The Durham Revue is the university's sketch comedy group. Tracing its roots back to the early 1950s, and known under its current name since 1988, the group consists of six writer-performers (auditioned, interviewed and chosen each Michaelmas Term) and produces a series of shows each year. The group performs annually with Cambridge University's Footlights and Oxford University's The Oxford Revue, as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
The Durham Cathedral Choir offers choral scholarships to male and female students, and several of the colleges (University, Hatfield, Hild Bede, St John's, St Chad's, St Cuthbert's, Grey and St Mary's) also offer organ and/or choral scholarships, as does the Catholic Chaplaincy. Northern Lights, Durham's student a cappella group, won the UK finals of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella in 2023 and 2024, going on to compete in the world finals.
Durham is also home to the oldest Gamelan …
