Oxfringe is not for profit and is run for the prime purpose of promoting upcoming artists who are not yet established and to provide arts entertainment for the benefit of the community of Oxford and for audiences from further afield.
Its mission is to provide an open access multi-genre fringe festival for Oxford, including comedy, drama, music of all kinds, literary fringe and mixed genre events, to support new and emerging talent across the arts. Oxfringe organises a small number of headline shows, performer preview opportunities and free community events. Oxfringe would like to encourage experienced venue management companies to run venues during our festival – if you are interested in getting involved, please contact us.
Oxfringe would not be here without our supporters, made up of our Sponsors, Funders and Friends.
Oxfringe is supported each year by a loyal team of volunteers and supporters. You can join them here.
History
Oxfringe began in 2007 with two small literary events, one in conjunction with Blackwell’s bookshop’s ‘On the Fringe’ programme. The programme for 2008 had an expanded range of around 60 literary, theatrical comic, artistic and musical events running alongside the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival from Saturday 29 March to Sunday 6 April 2008 at venues across the city. Oxfringe 2009 ran from 1-13 April, with almost 150 events across more than 20 venues. Oxfringe 2009’s headline performer was poet, comedian and musician John Hegley, who commented: “Spreading festival delight is a good thing, well done these folk!” Oxfringe 2010 saw an even greater range of shows, and nearly 30 venues – John Hegley returned, with other headline acts including jazz supremo Stan Tracey and comedians Simon Munnery and Dan Antopolski. Oxfringe 2011 promoted “So you think you can dance?” and a growing comedy programme.
Oxfringe 2007 was founded by writer, designer and publisher Andrew Chapman (now the Oxfringe designer), award-winning writer and artist Deirdre Ruane, and writer J-P Stacey. For Oxfringe 2008 Andrew and Deirdre were joined by theatre director and project manager Sarah Jones, and playwright Heather Dunmore, whose play Blue is published by Samuel French Limited. Oxfringe 2009 and 2010 were run jointly by Sarah and Heather. Heather ran Oxfringe 2011 and Sarah is returning to direct Oxfringe 2012.
