Monday 3rd November 2025
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Maids in Dagenham

Jenny Glennon
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Maids in Dagenham

Jaime Winstone breezes into the room wearing a colorful silk dress and the easy confidence of someone who has always been undeniably cool. Cheerful and outgoing, her role as Sandra, the free spirit of the feted up-and-coming feminist blockbuster Made in Dagenham, suddenly makes much more sense. Her previous roles in films like Kidulthood and Donkey Punch would definitely qualify as ‘edgy’ but here she revels in the part of the sweet factory girl who dreams of being a model. Winstone says, ‘she’s such a sweet character, I just really relate to her. Sandra says, “We are going to make this strike happen, and I do believe in it, but it’s still a shitty factory, and I want more.”‘

She pauses. ‘Frankly,’ she adds, ‘for me it’s a real relief just not being chased by zombies.’ Made in Dagenham hopes to be a step up from Winstone’s recent project Dead Set, a horror series set in the Big Brother house. Telling the feelgood story of a women’s strike at the Dagenham Ford factory in the late sixties, it aims to blend serious equality issues with feisty, likeable characters.

Winstone is eager for the chance to bring a forgotten chapter of history back to life. ‘The locations we filmed in really gave us a sense of what it was like to be these women,’ she explains. ‘We could really feel the spirit of the characters. We all adopted the accent and joked that we were like a right bunch of Fag Ash Lils.’

Rosamund Pike, meanwhile, who played Miranda Frost in Die Another Die, looks every bit the off-duty Bond girl in black leather jeans and a lace biker-cut jacket. She is playing Lisa Hopkins – one of the film’s three central characters – a Cambridge-educated housewife inspired by the workers’ struggle. ‘She sees these women going out on a limb to fight for something they believe in,’ Pike tells me, ‘and she finds her voice, which is there all along but was lying dormant until her encounter with Rita inspired her again.’

She takes a moment to think.

‘Roles for women, you know, they don’t usually go to darker places.’ She is thoughtful, clearly untroubled by lingering silences. ‘I’m always trying to find characters that are not what they at first seem to be. Coming back to Made in Dagenham, she says of Lisa, ‘you think you’re dealing with a comfortable middle class toff who then turns out to be very ballsy and passionate.’

There is a similarly pensive moment with Winstone, when asked if the plight of the Dagenham strikers is still relevant forty years on. She nods in emphatic agreement, ‘especially with what’s going on now, with the aftermath of the recession,’she says. ‘I work in an industry where, apparently, women don’t have their say. For me this industry is based on tradition, where you’d have the starlets like Monroe and a male director.’ She stops again, only to return to her thoughts on the industry: ‘it’s 2010 now, we are catching up, but there is still inequality. I don’t know if that’s based on tradition, a British tradition, or if we’re just a little bit behind.’

Both women noticeably brighten when the conversation turns to their future roles. After playing the daffy Helen in An Education, Pike has been cast in more comedy roles, including the upcoming Johnny English sequel with Rowan Atkinson – ‘it has a really funny script,’ she says with relish. Her days reading English at Wadham have clearly been an influence – having just finished a stint playing Hedda Gabler for the Theatre Royal in Bath, she’s currently working on a BBC adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow and Women in Love, and stars opposite Paul Giamatti in a forthcoming adaptation of Barney’s Version.

Like Pike, Winstone is keen to avoid placing herself within any one category. She hints that a West End production may be on the cards, but when pressed for further detail, refuses to get overly specific: ‘I wouldn’t wanna say, ’cause if it flopped, that’d be shit.’
Even with the occasional sleepless night or the creeping sense that ‘we’re just a little bit behind,’ it is inspiring to see members of both the current and up-and-coming generations of British actresses practising what they preach so relentlessly.

While either could trade on their looks alone, they continue to choose edgy, intellectual, and sometimes downright unpretty roles. Tradition may still reign in the film industry, but Pike and Winstone are clearly doing their share to see that the ladies catch up.

Two million feet and counting

Phillipa Harris
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Two million feet and counting

The latest press release from the Ashmolean says it all:
On Tuesday, 21 September 2010, at 4.23pm, Mrs. Diane Thomas, a primary school teacher from Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, became the 1 millionth visitor to the Ashmolean Museum since it reopened to the public on 7 November 2009.

How many one-year-olds can claim to have seen a million inquisitive faces? With a high-octane exhibition of nineteenth-century art – yes, I did just describe it as high-octane – and the reopening of a gallery stacked with replicas of the world’s most glamorous classical sculptures, the Ashmolean has never been in ruder health.
But stay a moment. Who remembers the old Ashmolean? I’m not sure that I do.

In November 2008 BBC disclosed that the UK’s oldest public museum was going to close for a year – and so it did – but I certainly recall there being a fair amount of banging, clattering and general tinkering going on for over a year before that too. Whether it was the eye-sore of scaffolding scarring the east face or Chris Howgego, the University Lecturer in Numismatics, complaining about how his favourite fifth century tetradrachm was somewhere lost in storage, the old Ashmolean has always seemed on its way out and the brand spanking 61m-pounds-worth of new Ashmolean been a thing-in-the-making for the duration of my Oxford career.

It was pretty small, eccentrically themed and perhaps had too much more in common with the Pitt Rivers than, say, the British Museum to really live up to its impressive facade. As perhaps befits John Tradescant’s original bequest, I remember the Ashmolean chiefly as a cabinet of curiosities: Guy Fawkes’ lantern, Powhatan’s mantle (that’s Pocahontas’ dad, by the way) and at least two rooms devoted to Walter Sickert’s paintings – a man rather tenuously thought to have been Jack the Ripper when someone had stopped suggesting Lewis Carroll.

This rather quirky side to the museum hasn’t been renovated away. In fact, if anything, it has expanded to include such curios as the robes worn by T.E.Lawrence, Henry VII’s golden burial pall, the ‘Messiah’ Stradivarius that, contractually, no one is ever allowed to play, and a hitherto hidden 5,000-item textile collection.
What has happened, rather, is the creation of a continuum between previously disparate pockets of interest.

Previously the Ashmolean’s idea of labelling left something to be desired. Now the displays have, if anything, gone to the other extreme. There’s no chance of escape without being brashly, colourfully and repeatedly told something. If you don’t like your global cross-culturalism hammered home in colour-coded format, you might find the new approach a little bit intrusive. But if, like me, you don’t have much knowledge of either Regency busts or third century Gandharan iconography, it certainly beats the slightly bemused Grand Tour offered by its predecessor.

Items are arranged o tell a story that weaves between rooms: clear, informative and memorable. Departments, previously isolated, have clearly exchanged notes and things that once seemed remote from one another suddenly belong in the same cabinet.

This love of connection is reflected in the building’s redesign. The new open-plan layout has doubled the exhibition space: six floors contain 39 additional galleries, with four for temporary exhibitions. It is immense and potentially labyrinthine but somehow, as you set off, it seems to all make complete sense: the great central stairway, the mezzanines linked by suspended glass walkways and the intermittent partitions all make progression between the exhibitions seem effortless and obvious.

Bridges woven from perspex and concrete that looks more like cirrus cloud than any building material link epochs, continents and galleries whose only furniture is the light.

You can catch flashes of what’s what through the spaces and follow your fancy. It’s almost an objet d’art on its own, not forgetting the view from the gorgeous (if pricey) rooftop restaurant.

Maybe the most impressive feature of Mather’s design is that, if you hadn’t noticed the last three-and-a-bit years’ worth of fuss and the £61m hole in the University’s bank account, you’d never even know it was there until you went inside.

And now the curators have added a cast gallery that unfolds like a Who’s Who of Classical art. Rome and Olympia are brought to Oxford with life-size reproductions of The Death of Laocoon and Mylon’s taut Discus-Thrower. Just around the corner you will find an anonymous marble of an old and sagging fisherman standing impudently beside a Roman general.

So maybe I don’t really remember the old Ashmolean, but what’s important is that I was thoroughly impressed by the new one. And I even found that tetradrachm.

Why we won’t bother to back the Booker

Chris De Beneducci
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Why we won’t bother to back the Booker

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.

‘Murder’ in Christ Church

Carla Neuss
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‘Murder’ in Christ Church

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.

Bibbidy, BOP-iddy, Boo!

Alyssa Grossbard
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Bibbidy, BOP-iddy, Boo!

Like Cinderella before the ball, when confronted with the issue of costuming ourselves for college bops in Oxford, many of us wish we had fairy godmothers of our own. Whatever the theme, wherever the place it’s held, the costume enthusiasm of those in attendance can make or break a bop.

As Fresher’s Week comes to a close, most colleges will be holding fresher’s bops – the induction for most first-years into the bop culture of Oxford. Every college with have its own theme – at some, freshers are paired up and told to come as famous couples. At others, they’re asked to dress up as anything which begins with one of the college’s initials, or even all of them if they can think of a costume which represents each letter.

And as the year goes on, bops will continue to proliferate, around holidays and randomly dropped into terms. Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day – all are fair game, and all come with their own sets of costuming rules. Some colleges have traditional themed bops, like Wadham’s “Queer Bop”, which are celebrated hallmarks of their cultures.

Every college may have different traditions in place, but the one common rule among all Oxford bops is the fancy dress requirement, firmly in place. With all of these opportunities before us, what are we to do when confronted with concocting yet another bop costume?
Some will choose to create one fabulously funny or eye-poppingly outrageous outfit, which they will then proceed to wear at every bop they attend in Oxford, with the costume they don becoming their hallmark, their symbol of sorts on the dance floors of clubs across the city.

But the rest of us will have to come up with a new idea every time. Inevitably we’ll spend a few minutes here and there in planning, coming up with ideas for individuals or groups of friends. And then we’ll get on with our lives and the urgency to find something to wear will be forgotten until approximately three hours prior to the event itself.
At this point, we’ll throw open our wardrobes and scour our shelves for something suitable to the theme in question. And though at this point we may on occasion wish that a fairy godmother would come along and wave her magic wand to give us bop-worthy garb, ultimately the fun of dressing for a bop is the last-minute mad dash, which can sometimes result in the creation of the most fame-worthy costumes, those which become part of college legend and are imitated by the next generation.

Even more cash for Cashmore

Camilla Turner
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Even more cash for Cashmore

A source has leaked information to Cherwell that the Governing Body of Brasenose has passed a motion of no confidence of 20 votes to two against the College Principal Roger Cashmore.

The vote of no confidence took place shortly after Cherwell published extracts from the “Confidential” report which detailed the expenses claims of the Principal and his wife, according to the source.
Brasenose College refused to comment on this motion, saying that discussions in the Governing Body are confidential.

The Principal’s Secretary disclosed that Cashmore is now on “research leave”, and has been since 1st October 2010. A spokesperson from the College said, “The Principal has been granted research leave for the academic year 2010/2011 during which time Professor Alan Bowman will be the Acting Principal”.

Brasenose College rejected any suggestion that there was a link between the review of expenses and the Principal’s research leave.
Cherwell can now reveal that shortly after the expenses scandal was reported, Cashmore applied for a post as Chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority.

The advertisement for the position of Chairman of UK AEA was issued in the Sunday Times on 30th May, just two days after Cherwell published extracts from a college finance committee report. These extracts detailed travel expenses incurred by the Principal and his wife over the past five years.

The report was a summary of a dossier where much of the correspondence was marked “Confidential” or “Strictly confidential”.
In the report summary, the Sub-Committee highlighted several travel expenses claimed by the Principal which were thought to warrant closer scrutiny.

The report raised “serious doubts” as to whether a trip to Pakistan in November 2005 was made on College business, even though it was “funded mainly by the college”.

The report also noted “the high cost of the ticket” for the Principal’s journey to the North American Reunion in April 2004.

It states that despite the fact that “no authorisation seems to have been given” for a trip to North America in 2007 and a “Visit to Greece” in 2008, the Principal flew business class and costs were met by the college in both cases.

In addition to these concerns, the report raised doubts about various travel expenses incurred by the Principal’s wife.

College policy of reimbursement of travel expenses explicitly refers to “members of College” or “college employees obliged to travel during their duties”.

However, the report reveals that prior to July 2008, the College “routinely met the travel expenses of the Principal’s wife” even though “such expenditure had never been expressly authorised”.

The Principal justified the reimbursement of his wife’s travel expenses on the grounds that his wife is a “very active member of the College”.
The report concluded that it was “impossible” to be confident that University rules regarding travel expenses were adhered to.

A spokesperson from Brasenose College said, “The members of the standing Sub-Committee were dismayed that their report to the Governing Body had been leaked to the press.”

Nick Holloway, Media Manager at Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, where AEA is based, said, “We are aware of press coverage of an internal Brasenose college matter from earlier in the year, but recognise that this was an internal college issue which we understand has been resolved.

“The Authority has a clear expenses policy reflecting its status as a non departmental public body. Professor Cashmore will be expected to adhere to this in full.”

Shortly after the publication of Cherwell’s article, Cashmore issued a response: “From the time I arrived at Brasenose College in October 2003 my and my wife’s travel expenses were dealt with in accordance with College procedures.”

Cashmore disputed certain claims levelled against him in the Travel Sub-Committee’s report. However, he conceded that, “It is apparent that there is a need for simpler and more robust procedures, and there is general agreement on that in the College.

“The Cherwell article quotes from a report whose recommendations for improved procedures I accept. These procedures are now in place.”

This week, Brasenose College commented, “The [expenses] report did not conclude that the Principal had submitted any claims for travel expenses that were not genuine. The members of the Sub-Committee are confident that there is no question of impropriety on his part.”

Business Secretary Vince Cable appointed Cashmore as the Chair of the UK AEA on 8th July 2010, via the Cabinet Office’s public appointments system. The post is a fixed term appointment for three years, which became effective from 30th July 2010.

The UK AEA is a non-departmental public body within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The non-executive position will entail two days’ work each month, for which Cashmore will be paid £25,000 per annum.

Of Cashmore’s appointment at the UK AEA, a spokesperson from the University Press Office said, “College heads are employees of the college so university regulations would not apply. However, there are University rules on consultancy-type work which colleges tend to subscribe to.

“Many senior officers and academics take on some limited work such as academic consultancy alongside their full time positions. This is permitted up to a certain limit under University rules.”

In addition to his new post at the AEA, Cashmore is the Chair of the Nuclear Research Advisory Council of the Ministry of Defence, which is a public appointment with an annual remuneration of £315 per day.

Tragic death of German tutor at St John’s College

Sam Rabinowitz
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Tragic death of German tutor at St John’s College

A Lecturer in German at St. John’s College, Mrs Gudrun Loftus, has died after sustaining what a police statement described as “serious injuries”.

Mrs Loftus, 52, was taken to the John Radcliffe hospital after her body was discovered at the foot of a spiral flight of stairs at 6.45am on Tuesday morning of this week. She was declared dead shortly after 10 am.

An email sent by the Principal Bursar of St. John’s, Andrew Parker, to members of the college on Wednesday morning said that Mrs Loftus had died after “an accidental fall on a staircase”. A statement released by Sir Michael Scholar, College President, reiterated the view that the incident was a “tragic accident”.

The email said: “Members of the College will be aware of the deeply unfortunate death of Mrs Gudrun Loftus, following an accidental fall on a staircase within the College.”

All students at St John’s College were urged not to speak to the press so that the event does not “become the focus of inaccurate speculation.”

Thames Valley Police, though, are still treating the death as “unexplained” and are “awaiting the result of a post mortem examination”.

Members of the college have been quick to pay tribute to Mrs Loftus, who received a University Teaching Award in 2007 for excellence in undergraduate teaching. Sir Michael Scholar described her as “a fine teacher” who “will be very much missed”.

One second-year student admitted, “Everyone in college is shocked”. Both said that their thoughts were with Mrs Loftus’ family.

Meanwhile, fears are being raised about some of the staircases in St. John’s. According to another undergraduate, there are many steep and “dangerous” staircases in the older parts of the college. He described Mrs Loftus’ fatal fall as “an accident waiting to happen”.

In the Closet

Chris Graham
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In the Closet

A frequent lament around the Cherwell office is the lack of paid advertising in the newspaper. While a whimpering war chest limits the scope for editorial adventure – our foreign bureau chiefs double as exchange students – from the fashionable perspective the budget is enviably thin, apt to disappear entirely when viewed in profile, and free of any obligation to a sponsor’s portrait of the fashionable life. Blessed with such reduced circumstances, our inaugural missive suggests buying no clothes this season, and instead taking your existing wardrobe to a tailor.

Ever wonder why your clothes always look better in the window displays or the glossy magazines? The reason is fit: yours are cut to a standard body type, while the display copies have been altered, pinned, nipped, and tucked. What you see in the mirror is a semblance of this, which is why most men look like they are wearing borrowed clothes.

The solution is simple but little employed. Have your shirts taken-in at the sides, under the arms, and, if you are especially slender, darted in the back. (Even ‘slim fit’ shirts are amenable to these alterations.) Sleeves can be shortened, but a cheaper way to get the same effect is to move the cuff buttons inwards; the narrower opening rests higher on your wrist.

Jackets may be altered in similar ways, with the ideal silhouette showing daylight between the arms and the torso. Insist on having the jacket sleeves shortened a half-inch above your shirt cuff, and when the tailor resists – they always do – smile politely and remind him this is your jacket, but he is free to flounce around in his own garments.

Trousers can be taken-in along the back seam, and the legs tapered, but removing pleats is almost never worth the effort, calling for the sartorial binge-and-purge. Trouser cuffs may also be tapered, from front to back, which reduces break in the front seam without making it look as if you were preparing to ford a shallow river.

Review: Klavierwerke

Alex Dudok De Wit
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Review: Klavierwerke

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.

Welcome to Rocksford

Alex Dudok De Wit &Amp; Matt Walsh
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Welcome to Rocksford

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/

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