Music

At the beginning of April Oxford is a cultural curry so spicy that just the smell of it will blow your head off!

You’ve already got the Literary Festival hosting some 350 writers talking, debating and discussing their books and other highbrow issues of the day and now, for the third year running, there is something else bubbling along in the background.

The OxFringe offers an extra 60 literary, theatrical, comic, artistic and musical events to amuse and entertain. It has the welcome effect of broadening out the action from around Christ Church to other parts of the city like the Oxford Contemporary Music’s “Open Session” which is taking place at the Northwall in Summertown.

Whilst there are some brilliant acts on at the OxFringe, it remains a very distant half cousin of the Edinburgh event. That’s no bad thing as Edinburgh is a well established industry standard of international importance where as ours is very much still in its infancy. I think the way the festival works now is exactly how we like to do things here in Oxfordshire - with a subtle flourish, and without turning the whole place into a circus.