He has won the Booker Prize, been named one of the Times’ 50 Greatest British Authors since 1945, and seen two of his six novels become high-profile films: The Remains of The Day, starring Anthony Hopkins, and recently Never Let Me Go.

Never Let Me Go is beautifully written, yet relies on a gradual build-up of information filling in the history and setting the scene for weighty revelations, making it perhaps not an obvious choice for film adaptation.

Speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival in conversation with Sunday Times Literary Editor Peter Kemp, Ishiguro admits that when writing Never Let Me Go, he ‘didn’t want it to be a film. When I started writing, fiction was in a vulnerable position – novels had to offer something one couldn’t get from the TV or cinema. I wanted to do something that couldn’t be done in any other medium – I was trying to write an unfilmable book’.

Yet filmed it was, and 300 pages of novel were made into an 80 page screenplay. When good books are filmed it is the natural instinct to lament the inevitable cuts and condensation of the flowing prose, but Ishiguro claims not to see it this way. ‘We’re not comfortable with film adaptations, we don’t look at them cleanly, as if they’re films. We demand fidelity to the source, but perhaps this is naïve, inappropriate.’

Instead Ishiguro sees the film as complementary to the book. ‘You have to extract the essence of the book for the screenplay. I didn’t want a translation; I wanted the film-makers to take the idea further. I feel like a songwriter who hopes that talented musicians will take his basic material further – I want them to be inspired, I want to discover things when I hear their interpretation. The book is safe inside its covers.’

Perhaps a reason Ishiguro dislikes the comparisons between film and book is that they are such different media. ‘In a book, you can have a universe in someone’s mind – it’s very difficult to do that in a film, as it’s a very third person medium. The physical setting is very obvious. A novel can be set in a hinterland between the mind and the real world, and the world outside might not be very realistic, but this is hard when you’re doing a film.’

He moves on to talk about the book itself. The title comes from the poignancy of asking for the impossible, as in the book Kathy and Tommy come to realise that given their situation, hoping for more time on earth to enjoy being in love is a request that cannot be granted. While the book’s premise has affinities with science fiction, it reads much more as a coming-of-age novel with a sinister and tragic twist. ‘Some have called it a fable about mortality, others a dystopian book about what might happen if we do things with science. The importance of the project is in trying to find a metaphor for the fact that we have bodies that age. We can’t live forever – what do we do with that knowledge? I wanted to look at the way people face that inevitability as they move from childhood to adulthood. It’s a metaphor for mortality, raising questions: What’s important to us once we are aware that our time is limited?’

He is asked whether he intended the book as in any way allegorical for the condition of exploited underclasses. Reared as clones, the world has turned its back on children like Kathy, Tommy and Ruth, preferring to forget that they exist. ‘I often go for things but the metaphor doesn’t quite fit, and before I know it I’ve got a secondary set of themes on board. The exploited class theme was like that. There are rich and poor parts of the world, and the exploited are out of sight for us.’

A question many have raised about the book is why the clones accept their fates without struggle. We never see any attempt to run away, or even any real questioning of why they are in their situation, but rather a passive acceptance. ‘In life, most don’t have the perspective to try to escape. Instead we try to dignify our lives, to find meaning in our situation. It’s fascinating the extent to which people don’t rebel. Most of us just know the world we’re born into and it’s hard to see beyond that. But there is a sense that if we make things remarkable enough, we might escape.’

Ishiguro moved from Japan to England aged 5 and has always worked here. He seems to have a slightly tense relationship with his Japanese connections. ‘I started off setting novels in Japan, but I think readers are very literal minded about settings, people thought there was a journalistic element and that what I was writing about only pertained to Japan. So The Remains of the Day is deliberately a very English book. We want people to take universal themes and truths. It’s frustrating that we must set novels somewhere.’ He tells an amusing story about how an early version of the film was shown in America, and people asked if this cloning for organ donations actually happened in England. This is a novel in which failure to suspend one’s disbelief can have disastrous consequences.

Already one of our most successful writers, Ishiguro’s wisdom and gentle tone suggest that success couldn’t have come to a nicer man. Never Let Me Go is certainly a must-read, especially for those who have not seen the film and for whom the suspense as the dark truths are painfully gradually revealed can really be experienced.

The RSC’s most recent production of The Merchant of Venice is an ambitious and brave attempt by Director Rupert Goold to modernize one of Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’. The Merchant follows the affairs of Antonio (Scott Handy), a prosperous merchant of Venice, as he leverages his overseas ventures to the moneylender Shylock (Patrick Stewart) in order to finance his love-struck friend Bassanio (Richard Riddell) in a quest to win the hand of the beautiful Portia (Susannah Fielding). The play presents a problem to modern audiences because it was originally conceived as a comedy, culminating in the humiliation (for comedic purposes, in the original script) of ‘the Jew’, Shylock. This juxtaposition between original comedy and the need to focus the audience on the issues of racism and anti-Semitism represented by the treatment of Shylock makes it a difficult play to stage with nuance.

Goold doesn’t shy away from the anti-Semitism of the text, but decides to tackle it head on. Goold deftly brings out the humanism in Shylock’s villainy and the racism in Portia and Antonio’s heroism. We are forced to watch and contemplate the barefaced anti-Semitism of the text in what Goold described as a “play full of individuals united by racism”. Completely rejecting any attempts at a period setting, the show is set amidst the avarice and superficiality of contemporary Las Vegas. Goold insists on forcing the play into the present with the use of car rides, ‘dollars’ instead of ‘ducats’, wigged reality TV stars, and a scene which takes place in a lift. In this context (and a plurality of American accents), Shakespeare’s text is lost in the cleverness of Goold’s vision. We spend more time, as an audience, trying to justify the set, costume, and time period than we do pondering the weighty ethical issues of racism, blame, oppression, fidelity, and superficiality raised by the text.

For instance, Portia is cast in this production as a blithering blonde southern belle for half the play before inexplicably reversing her intellectual chops for the famous ‘courtroom’ scene in Act IV. Portia’s marriage had been arranged in her father’s will – suitors would have to choose between three chests (gold, silver, and lead), and failing to find her portrait would swear to forgo marriage. Goold envisioned this as a reality TV show with a Britney Spears-cum-Anna Nicole Smith flavour. This trivialises Portia’s predicament and destroy the power of Shakespeare’s character (whose wit and sass align her with the Beatrice of Much Ado About Nothing) in one fell swoop. 

There are moments where the glitz and glamour of Vegas produce strikingly appropriate connections between text and production. The masquerade scenes are amicably done as debauched romps on the Strip. The suggestion that ‘the Duke of Venice’ is, in fact, an underworld boss and that Antonio’s fate will be decided by the brutal justice of the mafia also fits. However, these are exceptions in the play for their lucidity and appropriateness. The only scene which commands any attention is the courtroom scene of Act IV, where a disguised Portia plays lawyer to save Antonio from the murderous justice of Shylock. The scene is tense, brutal, crushing and comic. The gamble of developing The Merchant of Venice into a dark comedy pays off in the perfectly performed peak and plummet of Patrick Stewart’s Shylock; in the jarring anti-Semitism of Portia; and in the agony of Antonio. The moral bankruptcy of the original anti-Semitism is placed in stark contrast by Stewart’s mesmerising portrayal of Shylock as an oppressed man possessed by the desire of revenge.

Stewart balances his Shylock between the villain in the script and the trodden-down, spat-upon, humiliated Jew which commends his character to so many modern theatre-goers. The audience watches after his daughter’s flight as he is taunted by characters who turn their ‘S’s into the ‘hisssssssssssss’ of Auschwitz. His response, the ‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ speech, is second only in passion and performance to his speech before the trial. If there is a reason to see this play, it is Stewart.

In many places the play is genuinely funny. Launcelot (Jamie Beamish) is reimagined in this production as an Elvis impersonator, and his first soliloquy produced ripples of laughter. Beamish’s performance was spot on, and the audience laughed with him (where they laughed at the play in many other places). When the concept of this play gets described coherently, it sounds deceptively interesting, brave, and challenging: set The Merchant of Venice amidst contemporary Las Vegas in an effort to expose the hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy of the heroes. But, there is a je ne sais quoi in the execution that causes the whole to flounder. A multitude of small things fall flat: the contrast between the modern and the ancient; the jarring presence of Shakespearean language in a casino; the appearance of Yoda and Batman costumes; and the Elvis songs. In every scene, there is something which, like a sharp note in a flat key, suggests a mistake. The whole, in this case, is less than the sum of its parts.

At Wadham this week there is the chance to see something really worthwhile. An Evening of Dance is a true collaboration of town and gown, students and non-students brought together by a love of dance are putting on some real show-stoppers with an eclectic mix of all varieties of dance from tap to traditional Indian. There are so many different styles of dance on offer that listing them would be tedious. However, I promise you that watching them wasn’t. 

An example of the more modern dance on offer is Bond which, as you may have guessed, uses the well-loved theme songs associated with 007. It’s an energetic and staccato piece which more than anything expresses the strength and power of the dancers as they work together to create the impact it demands. Perhaps a little too innocent to capture the entire essence of our favourite spy but overall just as sophisticated and entertaining as the character in the  blockbusters.

Much longer, more ambitious and far more original is Icarus, a short ballet inspired by the Greek myth in which Daedalus attempts to flee across the sea on man-made wings with his son, the eponymous Icarus. The choreography captures the joy of flying with all six dancers wheeling across the stage in graceful lines like a flock of birds. The freedom of the later scenes is in direct contrast with the opening where the dancers seem stuck to the floor, trapped by gravity as the struggle to stand. There is a feeling of restlessness which permeates the dance, bringing drama and lyricism to the themes of freedom and over-confidence. Sarah Thorp, the choreographer, has managed to create a ballet which seamlessly moves through cheeky confidence, euphoria, wistfulness and agitation in under twenty minutes. 

It’s rare that you get to see a group of dancers so focused and in tune with each other and the pleasure they get from performing is palpable. An Evening of Dance is a fantastic event emphasising the power of movement in a city where we’re often so focused on words. In more ways than one this is a rewarding production; did I mention that it’s all for charity?

What is psychodrama and dramatherapy? It’s a hard question to answer and even after spending an hour at Combibos talking to Peter Haworth, president of the Oxford School of Psychodrama and Integrative Psyschotherapy, about the distinctions between these two fields, I still only can grasp that these things are some form of theatre that’s meant to help people. Is ‘normal’ theatre mean to help people? Maybe not so much. That would be a nice side-effect to any production, but most shows,  both in Oxford and in the professional theatre world, seem to strive to tell a story, show off some decent acting and top it off with eye-catching costumes and sets. Which is all well and good. But the idea of theatre that can actually make a difference in someone’s life (whatever that means) is intriguing to say the least.

On a basic level, psychodrama and dramatherapy are just what they sound like: the love-child of psychology and theatre. Its manifestations range from group therapy, where patients act out one another’s personal experiences, to full-on plays that stage a individual’s psychological issues for an audience. The governing idea behind it all is that theatre is good for a lot of things, but it especially has a knack for showing people something they hadn’t seen or realised before. In the context of therapy or psychology, this means theatre is an effective tool for personal growth, overcoming challenges, developing social skills and coping with trauma. 

Peter Haworth of OSPIP specialises in the last of these: psychodrama with people who have suffered from trauma. His work has taken him all over the world but currently he is doing work in Bosnia, which has a huge population that has suffered mass trauma as a result of a brutal war in the last two decades. Psychodrama, says Haworth, is especially adept at treating victims of trauma because it can go where verbal therapy cannot. 

For traumatized individuals, whether their trauma is the result of war crimes or personal history, are often unable to simply tell the story of what has happened to them. This is when, in the context of a group, the trauma victim can become a director, directing actors or other group members to act out a scene that comes close to representing their own experience. The effect of seeing one’s trauma acted out by a group can be pivotal in beginning the process of healing and moving forward from trauma.

Haworth recognises the challenges inherent in doing psychodrama in Great Britain. The cultural codes of conduct do not lend themselves to highly dramatic and expressive portrayals of personal and traumatic experiences. But in places like Bosnia, Brazil and Africa, psychodrama is proving to be a highly effective way to equip people with the tools to express themselves, share their stories, and communally cope with mass trauma and tragedy.

Does this mean that theatre can do more than warrant a round of applause at the end of a show? Most probably yes. The NHS is actively involved in supporting psychodrama and dramatherapy as a tool towards better mental and emotional health. Postgraduate programmes and qualifications in psychodrama and dramatherapy are cropping up throughout the UK. And given the amount of traumatic experiences that confront our world daily, it looks as though dramatherapy, psychodrama and theatre that makes a difference in the world, will have a growing place and relevance in the future.

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The conductor Paul Hillier’s latest recording with his vocal ensemble Theatre of Voices covers an eclectic programme of twentieth century composers, the coherence of which he justifies through the centrality of John Cage’s influence. The pieces demand that the performers are not only vocalists but actors too, and it is in this respect which the Theatre of Voices excel. All of the performers fully engage with the dramatic personas of the texts, the colloquial accent in Sheldon Frank’s ‘As I was saying’ particularly effective in its humour. The performance of ‘A-Ronne’ by the Italian composer Luciano Berio is a strong start to the album, with the atmosphere created through the hushed mutterings particularly effective. The intimate feel of Cage’s ‘Story’ makes it a particular highlight, with its rhythmic precision and colourful word-painting really bringing it to life. Unfortunately, the rest of the disc slipped just below this high standard. The meditatory feel was not captured in Jackson Mac Low’s ‘Young Turtle Asymmetries’, and the musicality sometimes came secondary to the elevation of the dramatic personas.

However, the recording itself is less than ideal. The balance of the voices sometimes needs adjustment and the degree of resonance sometimes exceeds the amount required in order to emphasise the theatrical nature of the pieces. Yet the interaction of the performers within the sonic space cannot be faulted. There is a real sense of dialogue, and each individual captures a sense of wonderment in the exploration of the percussive capacities of vowel sounds and how they combine to form words.

Although it is far from easy listening, Hillier and the Theatre of Voices attack the pieces with infectious energy. Their animated approach will appeal to many and will certainly lighten any day. 

Ask the average person in the street what they think of chamber music, and they’ll probably come back with the answer that it’s something that old (subtext: boring) people listen to. If you’d looked at the audience for the average chamber music concert ten years ago, you’d probably have been proved right. But times are changing, and it’s thanks in large part to the work of the Cavatina Chamber Music Trust. You might never have heard of it, or you might vaguely recall seeing its name or logo on concert posters or programmes scattered round Oxford, but it’s an organisation we should all know about.

Cavatina’s aim is simple: to bring chamber music to young people and young people to chamber music. Run by Pamela and Simon Majaro, who were both recently awarded MBEs for Services to Music, its activities range from organising music lessons and providing instruments to children from deprived areas, to supporting workshops run by world renowned ensembles or joint concerts between student and professional ensembles. Its ticket scheme, however, is what it is best known for – the trust allows concert venues all over the country, from the Holywell Music Rooms, or St Hilda’s Jacqueline du Pre to the Wigmore Hall in London, to offer free tickets at some of their concerts to concert goers aged between 8 and 26 years old. The scheme isn’t everywhere yet but we’re lucky at Oxford, as ever, to be at the forefront of the wave hitting the rest of the country – the Oxford Chamber Music Society and the Oxford Chamber Music Festival all offer free tickets to under 26s, and more recently the top student ensemble Oxford University Sinfonietta has also been supported by Cavatina.

You might go to chamber music concerts all the time – in which case, take advantage of hearing world-famous ensembles like the Wihan quartet for free. You might have been to one in the past and been put off by the outdated feel – in which case, try again and marvel at how things have changed. You might never have been to one – in which case, seize your opportunity. At the end of the day, these are free tickets to stunningly good concerts, and the start of something really special for performers and young audiences alike.