Shakespeare

Emma Smith

The Making of Shakespeare’s First Folio SOLD OUT
Weston Lecture Theatre 12:00pm Mon 18 Monday, 18 March 2024 See this event
Emma Smith

Shakespeare’s First Folio: Show and Tell
Weston Library: Blackwell Hall 1:30pm Mon 18 Monday, 18 March 2024 See this event
Sophie Duncan talks to Suzi Feay

Searching for Juliet: The Lives and Deaths of Shakespeare’s First Tragic Heroine
Lincoln College: Oakeshott Room 10:00am Fri 22 Friday, 22 March 2024 See this event
Greg Doran interviewed by Suzi Feay

My Shakespeare: A Director’s Journey through the First Folio SOLD OUT
Oxford Martin School: Lecture Theatre 4:00pm Sun 24 Sunday, 24 March 2024 See this event

Festival information:

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.

A stimulating and rewarding on-stage conversation; a lively informed and tolerant audience; privileged access to the great treasures of the Bodleian, and finally, wonderfully interesting dinner companions to help me conclude the best day I have enjoyed at any festival – anywhere.

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.

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

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.