Alice in Wonderland show closes festival

Tickets available for festival closing dinner

A unique family performance, Welcome to Wonderland, to celebrate 150 years since publication of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will close this year’s FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.

Musicians Ashley Wass and Matthew Trusler will perform original pieces commissioned from leading composers and an actor will read a script written by the author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernières,

Tickets are now also available for the closing festival dinner. The evening’s speaker is historian and broadcaster Diarmaid MacCulloch, who will talk about his forthcoming BBC series, Sex and the West.

This year’s programme is now complete, with more than 250 events available to book on the website or at the box office in Blackwell’s bookshop, Oxford (Mon-Sun 10am-6pm 0870 343 1001).

Title partner

International radio partner

Festival ideas partner

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Partner of Jewish programme

Supporter of Italian programme

Supporters of the Irish programme

MIT Press. Sponsors of the programme of American literature and culture

Festival London hotel partner

Festival on-site and online bookseller

Festival academic partner

Patron donor for the programme of Irish literature and culture

Worcester College

Lincoln College

11th St Hilda's day at the festival

St Cross College: Festival college partner. All facilities generously donated to the festival

Woodstock

Festival green room sponsor

Alumni Office

Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design

Local radio partner

Regional media partner

Oxford University Images

K T Bruce Photography

Estate agents

Wines of Tuscany

Wines of the Douro Valley

Festival information:

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 has in my mind become the leading literary festival of the year. The organisation, the roster of speakers, the ambience and the sheer quality of it all is superb. May it now go from strength to strength each year stretching its ambition more and more. I believe it will.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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