RICHARD BELL discovers club nights don’t get any better than the Coven’s gay night Dirty Angel – even one that’s suffering the post-Halloween blues.

Oxford’s gay scene is, in my opinion, sadly underrepresented in terms of the club nights on offer around the city.

The fact that I only know about one gay night and a couple of gay pubs in the city is a sad state of affairs.

So any themed nights really have to be up to scratch if they want to ensure that our gay community is impressed enough with each and every night to keep coming back week after week.

Now, the last time I was at the Coven was for some sort of gay fundraiser involving a lot of UV bubbles and lurid costumes, and what was so impressive is that this is the very same night, still going strong, two years on.

This is unquestionably due to the terrific amount of work put in by the promoters, stretching their brains and budgets to provide fantastic nights as often as is humanly possible.

And just a note for your diaries, but coming up soon, the Coven will be playing host to an 80s party which I’m convinced will knock the socks off any 80s party you have ever been to, and a Christmas party on December 18 complete with snow. Or foam. Or something (I was enjoying my third or fourth decently priced Becks when I was being told about this).

In any case it sounds about as amazing as people have come to expect from a night that consistently tries to provide the best and most original club experience you can have in Oxford.

Trouble is, on this occasion, we picked the wrong night on which to visit.

Still suffering from the hangover of Halloween, which I’m sure affected everyone else as badly as it did me – leaving a pain in my head and a frightening sense of emptiness in my wallet – it was clear most people were staying in, taking it easy and attempting to avoid spending any spondoolies.

As a result, the night was a little quiet, as if the club itself was attempting to recover.

Consequently, what we were left with was a thumping pop electro, cheap(ish) beer and a fair amount of friendly faces, which in my experience is actually a lot more than you get in the biggest and busiest nights around town.

When this night is packed (and it’s straight-friendly too), it’s utterly amazing but even when not so busy, it’s still very good, and while this particular Friday may not have been the perfect night, it still beat the hell out of going anywhere else...