Film

Alastair Lack

The Oxford of Morse, Lewis and Endeavour SOLD OUT
St John’s College 2:00pm Thu 2 Thursday, 2 April 2020 See this event
Greta Scacchi Interviewed by Peter Guttridge

An audience with Greta Scacchi
Sheldonian Theatre 12:00pm Fri 3 Friday, 3 April 2020 See this event
Suzie Hanna and Noreen Masud

Stevie Smith’s The Blue from Heaven: Film Screening and Workshop
St Cross College: Seminar Room 2:00pm Sun 5 Sunday, 5 April 2020 See this event

Festival information:

Every literary festival stays in an author’s mind for slightly individual reasons. I shall remember the Oxford festival for: - the size of the audience: at the top end of the range - their intelligence – this makes a huge difference for a speaker. In the Oxford audience I encountered many experts in the field my book covered and even one of the ambassadors I’d quoted - the beauty and the grace of the place itself – incomparable - the willingness of my hearers to buy books afterwards; I’ve never sold more.

Often as an author, I only occasionally get to meet the public who buy and read my books. The Oxford Literary Festival was a special opportunity for me and certainly one of the highlights of my career – it was an honour I will never forget.

The night in Oxford was the most beautiful event I have ever done. Not just the spectacular setting (of the Sheldonian), but an unforgettable evening.

The Oxford festival is the most elegant and atmospheric of literary festivals. It’s a pleasure to both attend and perform there.

I loved the whole atmosphere of the Oxford Literary Festival. From breakfast, alongside some of the attendees, who were talking books with each other a mile a minute, to the public event at The Sheldonian where everyone was lively and engaged – I felt I had arrived in a kind of literary heaven.

I came away buzzing and reassured that we still have in this century a wide ranging community fascinated not just by famous authors (I’ve rarely seen so many concentrated in one place) but by challenging ideas and questions.

The Oxford Literary Festival is intellectual Viagra.

It was a privilege for me to visit the festival to receive the Bodley Medal. As an incidental blessing I saw Oxford at its most mysterious and atmospheric. It was a day of piercing cold and as I walked through the twilight from the Sheldonian to Christ Church, the streets were empty and the whole city was shutting itself away. Christ Church was silent except for the footfall of unseen persons around corners and the sounds of evensong creeping from behind closed doors. For the first time I understood thoroughly the power of college ghost stories.