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Hosted by the Dean (Head of House) of Christ Church, Christopher Lewis

6.45pm Reception, 7.15pm Dinner in Christ Church Hall. £120 (includes reception, dinner, wines and signed copy of Andrew Marr’s The Diamond Queen). Dress Code – Black Tie.

The Alice in Wonderland menu for this year’s closing festival dinner is fit for a Queen in Jubilee year. And rightly so, as our guest speaker Andrew Marr, one of the UK’s best-known broadcasters, will talk about his book of the BBC series The Diamond Queen: Queen Elizabeth II and her People.

Dinner will be in the Great Hall of Christ Church where Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll, or Charles Dodgson as he was known in college, would have enjoyed a lifetime of meals both as a student and teacher. It was at Christ Church that the children of the then Dean inspired him to write the Alice stories, and Christ Church the place inspired many of the locations. The college continues to inspire today, the Great Hall being the model for Hogwart’s Hall in the Harry Potter movies.

Food historian Anne Menzies has created a menu inspired by the Alice stories. During her game of chess, Alice had been told that when she became Queen she would have to give a banquet exactly like one at Christ Church. The food will be produced by Christ Church executive chef Chris Simms and his team.

Following dinner, Andrew Marr, will talk about his new book, published to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and to accompany his flagship BBC series celebrating the monarch’s reign. It is an account of the Queen’s reign that draws heavily on Marr’s many years as one of the UK’s top political journalists.

He has worked for many leading newspapers and was the BBC’s political editor between 2000 and 2005. He now presents the weekly Andrew Marr Show on Sunday mornings on BBC1 and Start the Week on Radio 4.