If you choose a really beautiful and historic location in which to produce a play, there is no need for the kind of backdrop called for in a conventional theatre. This is the philosophy of producer Will Young, of Wadham College, who has been working on professional shows for several years.

He is confident that the magical setting of the Oxford Union Debating Chamber offers everything one could wish for when staging Tony Kushner's gay fantasia Angels in America. He says if the debating chamber is good enough for the various American statesmen who have appeared there over the years, it is good enough for Angels in America, which he describes as one of the most beautiful plays he has ever encountered.

This multi award-winning epic, which if performed in its totality would last at least seven hours, promises to take the audience on a two-and-a-half-hour journey across the changing landscape of 1980s America.

It's a tale of love and disease - and this disease is Aids, which for some of the characters carries such stigma that they prefer to call it cancer.

Will says there are several very poignant moments when a handkerchief will be called for, but it is a play that carries a message of hope too. Hope comes in the form of an angel. Whether the angel is real or a figment of imagination is not known. All that is known is that the angel arrives with a message - members of the audience are free to accept or reject the angel's presence - and, indeed, its message.

Angels in America will be staged at the Oxford Union Debating Chamber at 7.30pm from tonight to Sunday, with a 2.30pm Sunday matinee. Tickets are available at the Oxford Union office or by going to www.angelsinoxford.co.uk