Ask a friend to name the authors on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize. Likely responses include incomprehension, embarrassed apology, and the sort of blagging honed by the tutorial system. It’s a sad state of affairs for one of the world’s most prestigious awards for fiction.

Is it simply the case that our passion for books is significantly weaker than our interest in music and film? Certainly there’s less glamour, and this year’s Booker judges seem to have deliberately avoided celebrity writers. Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, both titans of modern British fiction, were nowhere to be found on the longlist. Then, the best-selling new novel from David Mitchell, one of the few household names remaining, didn’t make the shortlist. Sir Andrew Motion, chairman of the judges, said simply ‘we didn’t like it enough’. This will have hurt Mitchell’s pride, but not necessarily his sales. His earlier novel Cloud Atlas sold well off the back of a Booker nomination and – more importantly – the recommendation of the Richard and Judy Book Club. Novels need all the publicity they can get, but it seems a sorry indictment of British culture that daytime TV hosts have become literary kingmakers.

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The Booker prize has recently tried to slow the erosion of its stature. This year it has given out over 18,000 books to freshers at Imperial College, and the universities of Newcastle, Liverpool, St Andrews and East Anglia. The choice of universities is surely tactical. With a New College alumnus tipped to win with a dense, avant-garde exploration of human and technological communication, the prize must be careful not to appear merely the self-affirming instrument of literary high society. Despite the naivety of expecting freshers to settle down with a book within their first few weeks, it is without doubt a worthwhile initiative. Lorna Hutson, Head of the School of English at St Andrews, is effusive in her praise. Discussion groups were filled with students from all subjects; one could hardly hope for a better advertisement for the novel.

We all do enough reading for our subjects that the thought of another page of text is understandably unappealing, even if it is fiction. This saturation must be responsible in part for the low profile of the Booker prize at university. So too the bubble in which student life can exist. Perhaps there is also a countercultural element – just how fresh and vital is the talent put on display by the judges? Depending on one’s perspective, an unprecedented third victory for Peter Carey could be cause for dismay or for delight.

The Booker prize shouldn’t be criticised too quickly, however. Parrot and Olivier in America, Carey’s meditation on friendship and politics, has the makings of a modern classic. The Finkler Question finds one of Britain’s finest Jewish writers at full tilt. Jewish writers have been hugely influential in shaping modern American fiction, and a victory for Howard Jacobson could have real significance here.

When asked about the prize one Jesus English student said, almost seriously, ‘I only read dead authors’. It is true that literary prizes can fall prey to passing fashions. That was the appeal of the recent Lost Booker competition: forty years later, it was quite clear that JG Farrell’s Troubles had stood the test of time. Many writers – not least Philip Pullman – have bemoaned the recent pred ominance of present-tense narration in Booker shortlists. The author of the Northern Lights trilogy calls the technique ‘an abdication of narrative responsibility’. You’ll have to read the novels to decide whether you agree. That is the enduring beauty of literary prizes.

If you were hoping to see Murder in the Cathedral next week, then make other plans. The show has sold out weeks before its opening performance. This could be for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the show’s cast of nineteen has massively oversized families. Or T.S. Eliot fans have turned out in droves to see his rarely performed play. Or it could because director Tom Littler has returned to Oxford with a cast of students and professionals to stage unprecedented performance in an unprecedented space.

Next week, Thomas Becket will die nightly in Christ Church Cathedral, brought to life by Eliot’s metered verse and the Cathedral’s echoing nave. While an Oxford student reading English, Tom Littler directed dozens of shows, ranging from Shakespeare to A Streetcar Named Desire. But his vision of putting on Murder in the Cathedral while studying at Oxford was never realized. Years later, his dream to stage Eliot’s play at Christ Church is coming true through a cast and production team of both current and former Oxford students.

During his daily nine-hour rehearsals, Littler gently interrupts the rhythmic dialogue of the Chorus; ‘Sometimes scenes come at you like a tiger, don’t they?’. Littler doesn’t even need to raise his voice or get out of his chair to command the focus of his hybrid cast of students and professionals. In bringing together such a diverse ensemble, Littler as achieved a rare symbiosis: ‘The professionals raise the bar for the students and the students’ energy rubs off on the professionals’. The results are apparent enough in rehearsal; a unified and energized cast that can do justice to what Littler calls ‘Eliot’s masterpiece’.

Littler recalls his time as a student director fondly and with a touch of disbelief; ‘Oxford is a playground for [student] directors. You get to sink your teeth into huge plays. As a professional, you can’t pick what you do. You do plays that aren’t masterpieces. There aren’t that many flawless plays but I was able to direct many of them as a student’.

In returning to Oxford, Littler has the chance to direct a masterpiece again. He looks at Eliot’s play like he’s looking at a sacred text. He is one of a dying breed of directors who reveres the text rather than seeing in it only an opportunity to put his directorial signature on someone else’s work. In stepping beyond of a theatre world that perhaps loves theatrical spectacle more than loving plays themselves, Littler’s Murder revives not only his undergraduate vision but the lost art of knowing a masterpiece when you see one.

The name brings back memories of Grade 3 piano studies, but the music sends you into a hazy daydream. James Blake’s fourth EP is as spacious as the Australian outback, and – like its predecessors – full of glitchy melodies and very satisfying chords. Already at this point in his career, his style is instantly recognisable.

In CMYK, his last release, Blake took cues from J Dilla and Burial, mashing up 90s RnB samples beyond recognition and harmonizing them with synths. Klavierwerke applies the same treatment to Blake’s own voice, to similar but sparser effect. The “lyrics” are barely discernible – although he does seem to be saying “Cherwell” in the title track – and the vocal snippets instead function as the textural counterpart to the keyboard.

The third instrument is silence, and Blake plays it like a virtuoso. “Tell Her Safe” is basically a call-and-answer between voice and nothing. Throughout the EP, the pulse comes and goes. Almost gone are the dubstep influences that coloured Air & Lack Thereof; instead we get solitary handclaps, the occasional chime. Blake would be the one to drop 4:33 of silence into a DJ set.

But you won’t hear this EP in a club, because whereas his earlier music wrong-foots dancers with stop-and-start melodies, Klavierwerke is a step further away: it isn’t suited to clubbing at all. It’s a tonic. Soak yourself in it once a day, like you would in a hot, foamy bath – you’ll never need to wash again.

Oxford has a justified reputation as a major centre of musical innovation, which derives from its dominant band scene and a nightlife that is arguably the most vibrant and progressive of any city in Europe. We’re going to take you on a tour of the venues behind the vogue.

Cowley Road, with its pseudo-bohemian eateries and part-time hedonist student beatniks, is to Oxford what Greenwich Village was to 1960s New York. No wonder, then, that from this lukewarm hotbed of youth culture has sprung a mighty cluster of medium-sized music venues, which cater to both pop-lovers and those with a near-alternative music taste.

The O2 Academy, which inhabits the former site of the independent club Zodiac, is the largest-capacity music venue on the Oxford scene. O2 smeared the site with soulless matt-black paint, then whacked in three predictably extortionate bars. But the calibre and variety of featured acts is rising (Matt has seen Mexican mariachi, Finnish psychobilly and minimalist shoegaze under its sticky roof).

A ten-minute walk down Cowley Road takes you to what is perhaps Oxford’s most aesthetically pleasing venue. The Regal is a cavernous 1950s art-deco ex-cinema, which hosts everything from comedy to vaudeville parties, as well as one or two mid-sized bands per term. Alas, the ballroom-style wooden floor is so capacious that it is rarely even half-full.

The Cellar Bar and The Bullingdon Arms stand short and proud as Oxford’s two small-scale, DJ-oriented independent venues. Here is where you’ll find the city’s renowned house, techno, drum ‘n’ bass, drill ‘n’ bass, dubstep, poststep, clownstep and aquacrunk nights, which are well-served by decent sound systems.

The Bullingdon (in no way affiliated with Oxford’s favourite dining society), located halfway between The Regal and the Magdalen roundabout on Cowley Road, is an atmospheric club fronted by a lively pub. Though not exclusively a forum for DJs – gigs are regular – the venue comes into its own when hosting its one-off dance nights, some of which are run by students.

The Cellar (just off Cornmarket Street) – which on busy nights features its own ‘sweat cycle’ of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation – is home to regular club and comedy nights, as well as the occasional band showcase or gig. You’ll feel like a battery chicken among the crowds that flock to dubstep-oriented Free Range every other Wednesday (the night moves to the O2 Academy once or twice a term for a larger rave). On alternate Thursdays is Eclectricity, which deals in electro, techno and minimal. Its sister night Eclectric, haunt of the queefy trendsetters, is held on the other Thursdays at Love Bar (aka Babylove, just off High Street).

The Jericho Tavern’s upper floor, on Walton Street, boasts a stage where small but promising acts showcase their talents. Its proprietors love to brag that the pub was once the haunt of Supergrass and Radiohead, but you only have to peek at the upstairs décor – daubed as it is with Thom Yorke’s gaunt young visage – to work this out for yourself.

Choral chamber music is well-represented in college chapels and the city’s various churches, the best of which is the University Church of St Mary the Virgin (Radcliffe Square). A wider variety of chamber music – both choral and instrumental – is performed in Wadham’s badly lit but acoustically sound Holywell Music Room (Holywell Street), the oldest concert hall in Europe. But the best of Oxford’s Classical music scene is found in the rotund Sheldonian Theatre (Broad Street, opposite Blackwell), where both professional and (excellent) student ensembles perform mostly orchestral pieces. Handel played there, which is as good a recommendation as any.

Jazz is the preserve of hoity-toity restaurants such as Quod and The Old Parsonage, although the Spin Jazz Club (High Street; all gigs £6 for students) is a cheaper alternative. The Sheldonian and other theatres house Jazz concerts on occasion – go see the University’s various bands and orchestras, who are of a very high standard.

Finally, the most eclectic music venues are the colleges themselves. Purpose-built rooms, such as St Hilda’s Jacqueline Du Pré Music Building, typically have astonishingly varied programmes and cheap entrance fees. The king of all collegiate events is Wadstock, Wadham’s day-long music festival, which takes place in the college’s gardens in Trinity term.

The tour ends here. We hope it’s expanded on the dystopian vision of Oxford nightlife that the Entz reps present in Freshers’ Week. Bring this page with you when you next go out – that way, when you get turned away from a full-capacity Park End at 8:45pm next Wednesday, you’ll know where to go instead.

Below is a list of the venues covered in this article, alongside our picks of the term and a link to the venue’s official listings.

The Bullingdon Arms
Erja Lyytinen (Oct 25)
http://www.ents24.com/web/venue/Oxford/Bullingdon-Arms-7915.html

The Cellar
Bossaphonik feat. Dele Sosimi (Oct 8) and Free Range (every other Wednesday, beginning Oct 6)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=264aba2bd4a7a38933f4ecb2456b1f14&gid=2394594879&ref=search

Jericho Tavern
Darwin Deez (Oct 23) and Fenech Soler (Nov 9)
http://thejerichotavern.tumblr.com/

O2 Academy
Ska Cubano (Nov 6) and Freerange & Metropolis feat. Sub Focus (Nov 19)
http://www.o2academyoxford.co.uk/?t=calendar

The Regal
Marina And The Diamonds (Oct 24) and Frank Turner (Dec 5)
http://www.the-regal.com/whats_on.html

The Spin Jazz Club
Nic Meier Group (Nov 4)
http://www.spinjazz.com/gigs/bigcolorsbigband.html

Oxford Playhouse
Listings cover various Classical venues, including the Sheldonian Theatre and the Holywell Music Room
Joanna McGregor (Nov 12) and Barbirolli String Quartet (Nov 21)
http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/ticketsoxford/

‘I’m more interested in women’s stories than in men’s,’ says Nigel Cole, director of the 2003 hit Calendar Girls. With his latest film, Made in Dagenham, which chronicles the female auto workers strike that lead to the advent of the Equal Pay Act 1970, that love of creating strong female characters and exploring the nuanced relationships between women of different backgrounds is readily evident. The film stars Sally Hawkins as Rita, the leader of the strikers, and Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle, the leading female politician at the time who takes up the women’s cause. Like Calendar Girls, Made in Dagenham blurs genres, blending lighthearted moments with more weighty ones: ‘It has the right mix of humour, comedy, and drama that I always look for,’ Cole remarks. ‘I don’t really do straight comedy because I like to have some meat and content to my films. And I don’t do bleak, dark drama either: I’m too flippant. So I like a mixture of warmth and comedy and strong drama and this is exactly that.’

Surprisingly, Cole, along with the film’s producers, Stephen Woolley and Elizabeth Karlsen, came to the project knowing little about the 1968 strike at Ford’s Dagenham plant. Yet all three clearly relished the opportunity to bring an overlooked chapter of history to a wider audience. Woolley comments that he had first heard about the strike on a Radio 4 programme called ‘The Reunion.’ ‘I was fascinated by their story, and what struck me in particular was how innocent and unpoliticised they were,’ he observes. ‘All they wanted was a fair deal. It was common sense rather than any kind of axe to grind.’

In preparing to bring the story to the screen, the filmmakers tracked down the original Dagenham strikers. ‘Just hearing their laughter’ was inspiring to Cole, who was struck by the ‘irreverent fun they had telling the stories’ of their days on the picket line. Wooley was equally enthusiastic about meeting the women, noting that their vivacity was hard-won, having lived through the Second World War and rationing. ‘This film works as a reminder that, for many people, the 1960s were downtrodden and not particularly glamorous times,’ he says. ‘I’d forgotten how humorous people could be in terrible working conditions and faced with this inequality of pay. Instead of lying down and moaning about it, they just went and said “All right, well, we’re not going to work for a while then.”‘ Some brief clips of their interviews with the strikers can be seen over the end credits, and while many of these women are now in their eighties, they still possess a no-nonsense sass that is utterly charming.

Cole and Karlsen emphasize that Made in Dagenham is a story of everyday people. ‘They weren’t radical students, they didn’t have radical professors,’ says Karlsen. Cole adds, ‘I hate to use the word “ordinary,” but these were ordinary women: mothers, wives, factory workers. And they went back to it. Perhaps in a modern era they’d all have reality TV shows. They didn’t do this in order to put themselves on the map, they didn’t do it to make themselves famous or for their own vanity, they did it because they were annoyed about how little they were getting paid. And once they got that sorted out they went back to their roles.’ Karlsen notes that the characters in the film were based on a blend of the women they met during the research process. ‘We’re making a film, not a documentary,’ she comments, ‘[Rita] may be a fictionalized amalgam of several real people but we have kept true to the events. The strike did take place in this way and the women did meet Barbara Castle on that day.’

Finding the right actor to play Rita was crucial, Wooley asserts: ‘Once we settled on Sally [Hawkins], it was really a case of casting around her. Then we were able to get fantastic actors – like Andrea Riseborough and Miranda Richardson – to play some quite small parts because they loved the script so much.’ Karlsen adds, ‘When the camera turns on, she really fills the screen.’ Hawkins is clearly the apple of the filmmakers’ eyes, and with good reason, because she truly is the strongest aspect of the film. There can be little doubt her star will continue to rise. Cole had similar praise for Richardson, who delved extensively into archival footage and the diaries of Barbara Castle to prepare for her role. Cole laughs, ‘[The archival footage is] all in black and white, so you don’t get the power of that red hair, which is a weapon she was very happy to use.’ A feisty spitfire as Castle, Richardson practically bathes in that power onscreen, and some of the film’s most satisfying moments come from watching her make her toadies squirm.

While the filmmakers find it easy to applaud their leading ladies, their defense of Made In Dagenham’s unequivocally upbeat ending is somewhat less convincing. Karlsen points out that they had debated whether or not to put in a card at the ending that says ‘The fight goes on.’ Instead, there’s a card about how Ford has become a model employer, which Woolley admits was basically put in to avoid a lawsuit. Without a firmer statement regarding the persistence of wage inequality between the genders, however, the card sounds a discordant, unintentionally humorous note. The ending would have benefited from the fitting observation Cole makes at the end of our interview: ‘The fight does go on, and we hope that this film will stimulate that debate. But this was a victorious battle in a long war.’