Hands up anyone who has heard of the Philothespians? I thought not. They were, in fact, the theatrical predecessors of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, before degenerating into a mere student drinking and dining club.

But, in 1885, enterprising undergraduates formed OUDS and it is their 125th anniversary that is being celebrated at a special gala at their notional home, the Oxford Playhouse, on Sunday evening.

Hosting the event will be actress Diana Quick, who was at Lady Margaret Hall in the 1960s. Although already an enthusiastic performer in amateur dramatics, she recalled for me one specific OUDS production.

“The year before I arrived at university, I came to Oxford to see a Twelfth Night, which had Michael York as Orsino and Michael Elwyn, who’s still acting, as Andrew Aguecheek. So there were people who were heading for the profession at that point that I knew of.

“And after I came up in 1964, I worked with the likes of Michael Palin and Maria Aitken. Terry Jones was still lurking about.”

That period, of course, saw one of the great highlights in OUDS history, when in 1966 Nevill Coghill somehow inveigled Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor at the time of their greatest joint stardom to come to the Playhouse to appear in a production of Dr Faustus.

In a sense, that continued a tradition of importing actresses.

“Women hadn’t been allowed to be members of OUDS,” Quick told me, “it was an incredibly antiquated and reactionary situation. Maria acquired membership for women the year I came up.

“In earlier times they would get women in from outside, like Peggy Ashcroft at the beginning of her career.

“And of course there weren’t many women around in the colleges of Oxford.”

Diana Quick became the first female president of OUDS.

Among those she will be introducing at the gala will be Imogen Stubbs, in a scene from a famous OUDS production of The Three Sisters in which she originally appeared in 1980.

The show also includes excerpts from recent OUDS productions of West Side Story and Stoppard’s The Invention of Love.

Involved in a rather different way will be the director and writer Patrick Marber, who is to think of, write and rehearse a play with OUDS alumni in the 24 hours leading up to the show, which starts at 6pm.

Marber himself wasn’t an OUDS member, but performed for The Oxford Revue (the lesser equivalent of Cambridge’s Footlights) while he was at Wadham in the mid-80s.

I asked him how this slightly gimmicky instant playwrighting had come about.

“I was designated by an email from the OUDS President.

“It’s only got to be ten minutes long and it’ll be a sort of sketch play. I think there’ll be a cast of about eight and I guess it’ll be something OUDS or student orientated: I doubt if I’ll be writing a play about global politics!”

And how will he actually go about the process?

“I’ve only done this sort of thing once before. I think I meet the director and actors at seven on Saturday night and we’ll chat and see if anyone has any bright ideas — I’ll take them from anywhere, given the time pressure!

“Then I’ll have a nice meal, write a play and I have to present it at seven in the morning on Sunday.”

At that point, Marber said, he would attempt to get some sleep and join the cast for rehearsals at lunchtime.

Not to be outdone, current student members of the Revue will be undertaking a similar project.

The great days of OUDS are over: today, it is more an umbrella organisation for student drama, underpinning university-wide theatrical activities.

It almost went under when the Playhouse itself nearly went under in the late 1980s.

But the society survives and generations of performers and directors, who had the good fortune to be at the University of Oxford in the first place, have much to thank it for.

Happy 125th!