Words
by the Water Festival of Words and Ideas 3 – 12 March 2017 Theatre by the Lake Keswick
Away With Words . . . As well as running the Words by the Water festival Ways With Words organises a writing and painting holiday course in Umbria, Italy. 16 – 23 and 23 – 30 September 2017
A Spring Tonic – Words by the Water After the lengthy and grey days of winter Spring is coming and so is Words by the Water. Time for a tonic. We offer events that examine current issues, opportunities to question the state of the world. But maybe you are looking for an escape from the political climate, a chance to immerse yourself in the diverse topics that the festival covers. The choice is yours.
A summer festival at Dartington Hall in South Devon 7 – 17 July 2017
An autumn festival in Southwold on the Suffolk coast 9 – 13 November 2017
We often say that there is something for everyone on our programmes but of course this isn’t true. It requires a certain curious and creative mind to appreciate the rich mix of the events. While it is an exaggeration to say there is something for everyone I do hope that you will find much that will enthral you at this March’s Words by the Water. Don’t we all need a dose of new ideas after the long winter days? Come and be refreshed and invigorated as you bask in the diversity of new words and new thoughts at the festival. Festival Directors: Kay Dunbar, Stephen Bristow Chloë Bar-Kar and Videl Bar-Kar
And back in Cumbria for Words by the Water 2018 from 9 – 18 March.
facebook.com/wayswithwords follow us @ways_with_words #wbtw17
Melvyn Bragg, President of Words by the Water
And Words by the Water is going on, despite the inevitable turbulence which will hit us at the end of February (I write this in a comparatively calm November 2016). One of the more encouraging things about cultural life in this country, particularly over the last generation, has been the unstoppable march of the literary festival. Keswick is a prime example. From a small idea which met with multiple reservations, to a substantial, properly literary, wide-ranging festival attended by thousands of people who are of the tribe of readers, it is a very model of a British literary festival. The theatre itself, the lake, the cast assembled by Kay and Stephen, give us all a great buzz which says that (for this fortnight) all’s well with the world up in Keswick. And so I hope it is once again in 2017.
We are pleased to be supporting Words by the Water and look forward to seeing you at the Festival Bookshop, Theatre by the Lake. www.bookscumbria.com
When Harold Wilson was Prime Minister and battling to keep his toehold on power with a miniscule majority, a reporter asked him ‘So what’s going on?’ Wilson replied, ‘I’m going on!’
We also welcome you to our shops Bookends 56 Castle Street Carlisle Tel 01228 529067 Bookends 66 Main Street Keswick Tel 017687 75277 and Bookcase 17 Castle Street Carlisle Tel 01228 544560, for rare and secondhand books and new classical CDs
Friday 3 March – Main House Harriet Harman Women and Parliament
4.15pm Main House £10
Emma Jane Kirby in conversation with Harriet Harman Crossing Continents
Harriet Harman
2.30pm Main House £10
Why does the political representation of women matter? Longest serving female MP Harriet Harman QC discusses the challenges of campaigning with small children, her battle to increase the number of women in Parliament, and her fight to change a parliamentary culture that makes no concessions to family life.
Emma Jane Kirby
Award-winning BBC journalist Emma Jane Kirby has reported extensively on the reality of mass migration. Her latest work tells the story of a boat trip off a Sicilian island that turns into a tragic rescue mission. She will be in conversation with Harriet Harman MP on the current pressures of large migrations in Europe and around the world.
Main House Day Ticket - £16 for 2 events (not including 8pm event)
Chris Tarrant
8pm Main House £10
Chris Tarrant The Romance of the Railways Is it true that to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive? Over the last two and a half years, Chris Tarrant, star of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’ has travelled around the world filming ‘Extreme Railway Journeys’ for Channel 5. He shares tales of his numerous encounters and adventures.
Bursaries to Words by the Water If you are between the ages of 17 – 24 you may be eligible to attend events at this year’s festival
free of charge
email admin@wayswithwords.co.uk
Richard Cohen
Friday 3 March – Studio – Day of Everything 2.15pm Studio £8
Richard Cohen How to Write Like Tolstoy
4pm Studio £8
Tom Hodgkinson Entrepreneurship – an Idler’s Guide
Take a journey into the minds and imaginations of the world’s greatest writers with veteran editor Richard Cohen who draws on a vast and eclectic reservoir of knowledge to reveal what makes good prose soar.
5.45pm Studio £8
Steven Connor In Defence of Quantity Professor of English at the University of Cambridge, Steven Connor explores aspects of our numerical existence and shows how magnitudes and frequencies give shape to all aspects of our lives.
Steven Connor
Tom Hodgkinson
How can laziness be a virtue in business? Is it possible to make money while we are asleep? Founder of the Idler, Tom Hodgkinson relates his rollercoaster ride as a businessman, and delivers practical guidance for those who want more freedom in their working lives.
Studio Day Ticket - £18 for 3 events
Saturday 4 March – Studio – Global Perspectives 10.45am Studio £8
Carol Davenport, Richard Morton, Helen Schell and Katrina Porteous Imagining the Sun ‘Imagining the Sun’ – the exhibition at Theatre by the Lake – combines science, poetry and visual art. Artists and researchers from Northumbria University, along with school children, have been finding out how we can use creativity and imagination to understand our Sun.
12.30pm Studio £8
2.15pm Studio £8
Madeleine Bunting A Hebridean Journey
Madeleine Bunting
4pm Studio £8
On the edge of the British Isles, the Hebrides form part of Europe’s boundary. Their location at the centre of a network of ancient shipping routes has led to cultures colliding and merging over time. Madeleine Bunting explores the history and influence of these islands.
Duncan Green Change-Making How does change happen and how can governments, organisations, campaigners and ordinary citizens make a difference? Drawing on decades of experience in global development, Oxfam Senior Strategic Adviser, Duncan Green introduces his field guide to social activism and discusses how major changes in our world can be made through concerted action.
5.45pm Studio £8
Raoul Martinez
Xiaolu Guo A Story of Modern China After a decade in Europe, Xiaolu Guo tells her story from childhood with illiterate grandparents in a fishing village on the East China Sea to studying at Beijing Film School. She navigates the everyday peculiarity of modern China: censorship, underground art and how to love when you have never been shown how.
Raoul Martinez Fight for Our Future Are we as free as we think we are? Or has the ideal of freedom been lost, moulded to suit the interests of those with the power to shape it? Filmmaker, artist and writer Raoul Martinez presents a radical, revolutionary and provocative exploration of one of the most urgent issues of our time – the idea of freedom.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Saturday 4 March – Main House
Anthony Barnett
Melvyn Bragg
11am Main House £10
Anthony Barnett After Brexit and Trump, Where Do We Go? Where indeed? The world has had a wake up call – but a wake up to what? Maybe writer and campaigner Anthony Barnett, the Founder of openDemocracy will be able to give some answers.
Diana Darke
12.45pm Main House £10
Melvyn Bragg The Royal Literary Fund Lecture – The North Melvyn Bragg celebrated the history and culture of the North of England in his 10-part Radio 4 series. Travelling around and reporting from the North he focused on pivotal historical moments and cultural contributions from the region, which have helped shape Britain’s place in the world. It is a story close to his heart. ‘There’s no doubt that being northern matters greatly to people in 2016.’ he reported. The Royal Literary Fund was set up in 1790 to help professional authors. Past beneficiaries have included Coleridge, Joseph Conrad, DH Lawrence and Dylan Thomas. Last year it helped 200 writers, though not all of them are quite so famous yet. www.rlf.org.uk
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 8pm event)
Peter Snow
2.30pm Main House £10
4.15pm Main House £10
Salley Vickers
Diana Darke Inside Syria In 2005 Diana Darke, Middle-East specialist, bought a crumbling Ottoman house in the old city of Damascus. Later it became a sanctuary to friends until it was stolen from her by war profiteers. So she returned to retake it. Diana Darke offers an inside view of Syria – its culture and complex religious and ethnic communities – and presents a picture of the realities of living there.
Peter Snow British History in 50 Documents Historian and broadcaster Peter Snow, along with his son Dan, undertook the challenge to examine our nation’s history through 50 key documents – from Magna Carta to Tim Berners-Lee’s memo for the World Wide Web. He explains the criteria for this selection and discusses his personal choices.
Mark Watson
6pm Main House £10
Salley Vickers Love’s Demands
8 - 9pm Main House £10
Mark Watson A Work In Progress
Salley Vickers talks about her new book ‘Cousins’. It is a novel weaving darkness and light which takes us from the outbreak of World War II to the present day. Salley Vickers explores the recurrence of tragedy, the nature of transgression, and the limits of morality and love.
Almost entirely new material from a suitably nervous Mark Watson. This will be the first time he’s ever done this show. So although he has five stars from the British Theatre Guide, who said ‘a raucously funny set, one of the best this year’, you shouldn’t really pay too much attention to that. Come to watch the first inkling of a show emerge from a lot of faffing about. (One hour, no interval. May contain adult material.) ‘skilful, anecdotal stand-up . . . a step above the norm’ (Chortle)
Sunday 5 March – Main House
Vince Cable
11am Main House £10
12.45pm Main House £10
Mark Watson
Vince Cable Balancing the Books Can Britain rebalance its economy in an increasingly uncertain global market while also raising living standards? Former Business Secretary Vince Cable looks at the fallout from the 2008 global financial crisis and considers how the British economy should best be managed over the next decade and beyond.
Mark Watson Telling Stories
Wendy Holden
2.30pm Main House £10
Chris Graham
Chris Graham and Wendy Holden Standing up to Dementia At 34 years old Chris Graham had the devastating diagnosis of advanced Alzheimer’s disease. He and his biographer Wendy Holden discuss the impact of the diagnosis, his decision to stand up to dementia with a combination of humour and British grit and his incredible awareness-raising 16,000-mile solo cycle around North America.
Award-winning comedian, sports pundit and author, Mark Watson divides his time between standup work and writing novels. His latest publication explores where the truth really lies in a world that blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality.
Main House Day Ticket - £32 for 4 events (not including 6pm event/film)
Roy Hattersley
Luke Harding
4.15pm Main House £10
Roy Hattersley The Survival of Catholicism
6pm Main House £15 (talk and film)
Luke Harding Edward Snowden – The Whistle Blower
Mapping the three hundred years that followed the Act of Supremacy, Roy Hattersley focuses on the lives, and sometimes deaths, of individual Catholics – martyrs and apostates, priests and laymen – telling the story of the men and women who faced the dangers and difficulties of being what their enemies still call ‘Papists’.
Edward Snowden remains in exile in Russia facing espionage charges for the biggest security breach in history which exposed the activities of the USA’s National Security Agency. Prize-winning Guardian journalist Luke Harding uncovers Snowden’s story and explores the concept of individual privacy in the age of the internet.
Film: Snowden (15) At 7pm there will be a 30 minute interval, followed at 7.30pm by a full screening of the film ‘Snowden’. Running time – 134 mins.
Sunday 5 March – Studio – Body and Mind
David Clark
10.45am Studio £8
12.30pm Studio £8
2.15pm Studio £8
Joe Moran Of the Violet Persuasion
4pm Studio £8
Helen Mort The Clarity of Running
Helen Mort
David Clark The Act of Dying In the late 19th century, a Londonbased doctor William Munk published a treatise on ‘easeful death’ that mapped principles of support at the end of life. Tracing the development of palliative care, Professor David Clark of Glasgow University asks should we pay greater attention to the act of dying?
June Andrews Dementia – A Practical Guide Globally 44.4 million people live with dementia, yet most who are diagnosed feel very alone. Director of Dementia Services Development Centre at the University of Stirling, June Andrews delivers advice – on symptoms, getting help and staying positive – for all those whose lives are touched by dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.
5.45pm Studio £8
Why are we shy? Can we overcome it? Does it define us? Professor of Cultural History at Liverpool John Moores University, Joe Moran explores the hidden world of shyness, from timidity in lemon sharks to the role of texting in Finnish love affairs. To be shy, he asserts, is not simply a burden – it is also a gift, a different way of seeing the world that can be both enriching and inspiring.
Poet, climber and runner Helen Mort is writer of Lake District Trail Running. ‘I feel truly alive when I’m outdoors,’ she says. ‘When you get moments in running where everything’s going well, there’s a kind of clarity to it. A climb can’t be paraphrased, it can only be done. You can’t paraphrase a poem. You can only write it or read it.’
Caroline Williams Changing My Mind Science journalist Caroline Williams asks: Can you really rewire an adult brain? To find out she visited top neuroscientists and volunteered herself as a guinea pig, challenging researchers to improve on weaknesses such as her limited attention span and her tendency to worry. She reveals the results of her research.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Monday 6 March – Bookcase Day 2.15pm Bookcase is a vast secondhand and antiquarian bookshop in Carlisle that has been publishing Studio books of local interest for over twenty years with £8 some eighty or so books in the current catalogue. Today features some of the latest publications.
Steve Matthews
Peter Brears
4.15pm Main House £8 10.45am Studio £8
Ray Greenhow The Derwentwater Disaster On Friday 12 August 1898, five young ladies, all close friends, on an outing from Nelson and Colne in Lancashire, were drowned after a boating accident on Derwentwater. Former policeman Ray Greenhow draws on documentary evidence to reconstruct the tragedy.
12.30pm Studio £8
Tom Smith Keswick and the Pencil The world’s first pencil was thought to have been made in Keswick during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, following the discovery of a pure graphite deposit near Seathwaite. Dr Tom Smith follows the story of the pencil from the handmade pencils of the eighteenth century through to the mass production methods of today.
Steve Matthews Carlisle and the Control of Liquor In 1916, Lloyd George took the breweries and public houses in Carlisle and District under public ownership. The Government had embarked on a unique experiment to change the culture of the working class. By imposing strict rules and tight management they sought to civilize the public house.
Peter Brears The Traditional Food of Cumbria Home cooking in Cumbria was a significant and revealing aspect of domestic life, reflecting the physical, economic and social environment of families within its community. Peter Brears examines the life of ordinary Cumbrian people over the centuries as revealed in their food and drink.
5.45pm Studio £8
Michael Mullett The Story of Penrith to the Close of the Middle Ages William Camden thought the name Penrith was derived from the ‘British [Welsh] (for) a red hill or head, for the ground thereabouts, and the stone of which it is built, are both reddish.’ Professor Michael Mullett explores the history of this ancient market town and royal borough from the earliest times to the close of the Middle Ages.
Bookcase Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Monday 6 March – Main House
Tariq Ali
John Sutherland
11am Main House £10
Tariq Ali Understanding Lenin
12.45pm Main House £10
John Sutherland The Brontës Uncovered
Lenin wrote ‘We did not know everything.’ Film-maker and editor of the New Left Review, Tariq Ali explores Lenin’s first stirrings of revolutionary fervor, the political and moral crises he faced and finally the consequences of his decisions.
Professor John Sutherland takes an idiosyncratic look at the world of the Brontës in his book ‘Brontësaurus’, from the bumps on Charlotte’s head to the nefarious origins of Mr Rochester’s fortune, by way of astral telephony, letterwriting dogs, an exploding peat bog, and much, much more. He is joined by Guardian columnist John Crace, author of ‘Jane Eyre Abbreviated’.
Alistair Carr
2.30pm Main House £10
Alistair Carr Desert Travel
4.15pm Main House £8
Peter Brears The Traditional Food of Cumbria
Alistair Carr takes us on a dangerous and unusual journey across the remote and inhospitable Sahel in North Africa. He tells tales of rebellion, lost civilizations and explorers. His book of these ambitious travels, ‘The Nomad’s Path: Travels in the Sahel’, is evocatively written and as Colin Thubron said, ‘It makes you want to go.’
Home cooking in Cumbria was a significant and revealing aspect of domestic life, reflecting the physical, economic and social environment of families within its community. Peter Brears examines the life of ordinary Cumbrian people over the centuries as revealed in their food and drink.
Main House Day Ticket - £30 for 4 events (not including 6pm event/film)
Terry Abraham
6pm Main House £15 (talk and film)
Philip Houghton
Philip Houghton and Terry Abraham Life of a Mountain: Blencathra Cumbrian Poet Philip Houghton features in the film ‘Life of a Mountain: Blencathra’ by critically acclaimed filmmaker Terry Abraham, which follows Abraham’s highly successful ‘Life of a Mountain: Scafell Pike’. They consider film and literary responses to mountain landscapes.
At 7pm there will be a 30 minute interval, followed at 7.30pm by a director’s cut of the film. (Running time – approx. 65 mins.)
Film: ‘Life of a Mountain: Blencathra’ is Terry Abraham’s second film in a mountain trilogy and follows his critically acclaimed BBC hit ‘Life of a Mountain: Scafell Pike’. His vision delivers a first-hand, soaring, lyrical experience, following a landscape and its people through the seasons.
Tuesday 7 March – Main House
John Crace
11am Main House £10
John Sutherland
Raymond Tallis
John Crace and John Sutherland Shakespeare – An Unusual View To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, John Crace the Guardian’s parliamentary sketch writer and author of the ‘Digested Reads’ columns, and John Sutherland, who currently teaches at the California Institute of Technology, have written a new collection of the Bard’s greatest plays. Funny and clever, these parodies are a joy. (With readings from Philip John and Leah Varnell.)
12.45pm Main House £10
Elif Shafak
Raymond Tallis God, Free Will and the NHS In his latest collection of essays, physician and philosopher Raymond Tallis meditates on the complexity of human consciousness, free will, mathematics, God and eternity. These thoughts are interrupted by Tory barbarians destroying the NHS, tearing apart the welfare state, and steering England towards recession.
2.30pm Main House £10
Elif Shafak Forty Rules Elif Shafak is a Turkish author who has published 15 books. She discusses two contrasting novels ‘The Forty Rules of Love’ in which she explores the thirteenth century Sufi poet Rumi, and her recent novel ‘The Daughters of Eve’, set in the UK and Turkey, which is centred on the secular-Islam conflict.
Main House Day Ticket - 32 for 4 events (not including 7.30pm event)
Helen Farish
4.15pm Main House £10
Adam O’Riordan
David Owen
Helen Farish and Adam O’Riordan Poetry of Time and Place Former Wordsworth Trust poetsin-residence Adam O’Riordan and Helen Farish discuss their award winning poetry and offer readings from their latest collections. Adam O’Riordan’s ‘A Herring Famine’ and Helen Farish’s ‘The Dog of Memory’ have been widely met with critical acclaim.
7.30pm Main House £10
David Owen Churchill’s Cabinet Former Foreign Secretary, Lord Owen gives a new history of the pivotal British War Cabinet meetings of May 1940. The minutes of these meetings reveal just how close Britain came to seeking a negotiated peace with Nazi Germany. David Owen, who led the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and now sits as an Independent Social Democrat in the House of Lords, explores Churchill’s powers of persuasion and the strengths of Cabinet-run government.
Tuesday 7 March – Studio – On Our Doorstep
Andrew Michael Hurley
10.45am Studio £8
Gary Fildes
Andrew Michael Hurley Landscapes of the Loney
2.15pm Studio £8
Gary Fildes Star Man
4pm Studio £8
Autumn Richardson and Richard Skelton Discourse with a Cumbrian Landscape
Gary Fildes is the lead astronomer of the Kielder Observatory, which he also helped to build. The observatory has been ranked one of the top ten stargazing sites in the world. He charts his progress from 25 years working on building sites to running Britain’s largest observatory.
Andrew Michael Hurley’s Gothic horror novel ‘The Loney’ is set firmly in the North, specifically in Cumbria. ‘The landscape that I saw when I was writing was one of coexisting opposites: then and now; buried and unearthed; permanent and transitory; real and unreal.’ 12.30pm Studio £8
Simon Temple-Bennett Home is My Castle Twenty years ago Simon TempleBennett bought a near derelict 18th century folly castle in Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria. Today Augill Castle is an elegant home where he lives with his wife Wendy and teenage children. It is also an idiosyncratic hotel. Simon’s colourful castle life forms the basis of his books ‘Undressed for Dinner’ and ‘Stop for Breakfast’.
Autumn Richardson and Richard Skelton formed the acclaimed Corbel Stone Press in Cumbria in 2009, bringing art, music and literature into discourse with the natural landscape. They present some of their work from the last half-decade, including film, music and poetry. 5.45pm Studio FREE – a collection will take place afterwards for the RNIB’s Talking Books and WBTW’s Bursary Scheme.
Jacci Bulman A Celebration of Cumbrian Poetry Jacci Bulman reads from her new collection ‘A Whole Day Through From Waking’ that she says connects us to many kinds of love. There will also be readings from Alison Barr, Josephine Dickinson, Helen Fletcher, Amy Heys, Nicola Jackson, Kathleen Jones, Kim Moore and Mary Robinson in a celebration of Cumbrian poetry.
Studio Day Ticket - £24 for 5 events
Wednesday 8 March – Studio – Women and Ideas 10.45am Studio £8
Lauren Elkin Women Walk the City
12.30pm Studio £8
Richard Francis The Salem Witchcraft Trials
‘I walk because, somehow it is like reading. You’re privy to those lives and conversations that have nothing to do with yours.’ Lauren Elkin discusses women walking in cities – the likes of George Sand, Martha Gellhorn, Agnes Varda.
Richard Francis tells a story of political hysteria, as recognisable today as it was in the seventeenth century, and of Samuel Sewall, anti-slavery advocate, defender of Native American rights, and presiding judge at the Salem Witchcraft Trials in 1692, where he sentenced twenty innocent women to death. 2.15pm Studio £8
Clover Stroud The Power of the Wild After Clover Stroud’s mother had a catastrophic riding accident her happy family life fell apart and she embarked on a search for somewhere she could call home. She tells the story of her adventures from the traveller rave scene in Ireland, to war-torn South Caucasus and to Texas, where she became a cow girl.
Clover Stroud
Lauren Elkin
4pm Studio £8
Michelle McGagh Spend Less Live More
5.45pm Studio £8
Olivia Fane Love and Sex
When financial journalist Michelle McGagh challenged herself not to spend money for a year she discovered she was no longer feeling the desire to buy things or feeling the pressure of being sold to. She explains how her relationship with money, with things, with time and with other people has been transformed.
Olivia Fane has endured one divorce, married two husbands, given birth to five sons and written five novels. She discusses falling in love, the reality of life in an open marriage and the pain of divorce. She argues that it is lively and stimulating conversation rather than sex that keeps the flame alive between a couple.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Wednesday 8 March – Main House
Juliet Barker
11am Main House £10
12.45pm Main House £10
Val Corbett
Juliet Barker The Missing Brontë Branwell has always been written out of the Brontë story as a drunken wastrel: even his selfportrait has been expunged from the painting of his sisters. In the bicentenary of his birth, Brontë biographer Juliet Barker argues that it is time to reassess Branwell and acknowledge his pivotal role in his sisters’ creative lives.
Val Corbett An Unusual Career The well known Cumbrian photographer and frequent winner of the Lakeland Book Award, Val Corbett, discusses the wide variety of her work from landscapes, architecture, sculpture, ceramics, gardens, to the quirky theme of rainy days in the Lake District. In this illustrated talk she reveals how such diversity has resulted in an unusual and absorbing career.
2.30pm Main House £10
Sheila Rowbotham
Shelia Rowbotham Journey to the New World Historian and doyenne of the feminist movement Sheila Rowbotham offers fresh perspectives on the historical interaction of feminism, socialism, and anarchism as she uncovers the transatlantic story of six radical, fin de siècle pioneers as they journey towards New World utopias.
4.15pm Main House £10
A.L. Kennedy Literature of our Times Prize-winning author, fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, standup comic and essayist, A.L. Kennedy has written 17 books to date: novels, short stories, nonfiction, science fiction. She discusses her latest creation, ‘Serious Sweet’, and the craft of writing.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 8pm event)
A.L. Kennedy
6pm Main House £10
Steve Westaby
Steve Westaby Mending Broken Hearts The day his grandfather died of heart disease, Dr Steve Westaby vowed to become a heart surgeon. Now one of the world’s most eminent cardiac specialists, he shares the chances he took as a pioneering physician and tells some of the stories of the lives he has saved over his 35-year career.
Natalie Haynes
8 - 9.15pm Main House £12
Natalie Haynes History Has Never Been So Much Fun Comedian and star of the BBC Radio 4 series ‘Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics’, Natalie brings her unique combination of ancient history and performance to Words by the Water and takes us on an entertaining, whistlestop tour of Greek Tragedies and Comedies via Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Thursday 9 March – Main House 10.15 – 11.30am Circle Gallery £6
POETRY BREAKFAST Coffee, Croissants and Poetry Bring a poem to read – one of your own or one you admire. (Advance booking essential)
Mark Lawson
11am Main House £10
Mark Lawson Who Can You Believe? A Modern Nightmare Best selling author, cultural critic and presenter of Radio 4’s ‘Front Row’ and ‘Foreign Bodies’, Mark Lawson discusses his satirical novel ‘The Allegations’ in which he explores how easily, in contemporary culture, allegations are made and reputations casually destroyed.
12.45pm Main House £10 Please Note: This event has changed from that in the printed brochure.
Kaya Genç Rage and Revolution in Modern Turkey Turkey stands at the crossroads of the Middle East – caught between the West and ISIS, Syria and Russia, and governed by an increasingly forceful leader. Acclaimed novelist and essayist Kaya Genç, who has been covering his country for the past decade, discusses how Turkey’s divided society is coming to terms with the 21st century, getting to the heart of the conflicts between history and modernity in the Middle East.
Main House Day Ticket - £37 for 4 events (including 6.30pm film)
Kaya Genç
2.30pm Main House £10
Allan Jenkins
Allan Jenkins A Love Affair With Land For Allan Jenkins, Editor of Observer Food Monthly, tending Plot 29 on a London allotment site was therapy. He shares the thrill of growing food, the pleasure of losing yourself in the flowerbeds, and the joy of allotments where people come together to grow.
Anna Pasternak
4.15pm Main House £15 (talk and film)
Anna Pasternak The Inspiration Behind Doctor Zhivago Anna Pasternak tells the heartbreaking story of the passionate love affair between Boris Pasternak and Olga Ivinskaya – the tragic true story that inspired Doctor Zhivago. Anna Pasternak has had unprecedented access to family sources, providing insight into one of the greatest literary love affairs of the 20th century. Her book ‘Lara’ is being developed for a six part TV series.
Film: Doctor Zhivago (PG) At 5.15pm there will be a 75 minute interval, followed at 6.30pm by a full screening of the film ‘Doctor Zhivago’. (Running time – 200 mins.)
Thursday 9 March – Studio – Perception & Reality in Art
Kassia St Clair
10.45am Studio £8
2.15pm Studio £8
Eleanor Morgan Gossamer Days
4pm Studio £8
Jovan Nicholson Talking in Colour
Jovan Nicholson
Ross King Reflections on Water Lilies In 1916 Claude Monet painted huge canvases of the surface of his water lily pond intended by the artist to provide ‘an asylum of peaceful meditation’. Yet they were painted amid personal turmoil and sadness. Art historian Ross King tells the story behind the water lily paintings, revealing the soul of a great artist.
12.30pm Studio £8
Spiders and their silks have mapped the stars, created fabrics, made music and healed wounds. Artist Eleanor Morgan is drawn to spiders because ‘like me, they make things’. She investigates the uses of spider silk, the quest to make profit from it, and its place in nature, science, technology and art.
Kassia St Clair Shades of White, Blue, Yellow … From Whitewash to Avocado, Acid Yellow to International Klein Blue, design writer Kassia St Clair shares her fascination with, pigments, dyes and hues, both beloved and obscure.
5.45pm Studio £8
Winifred Nicholson painted feminine themes and lived most of her long life in Cumberland. She wrote: ‘My paintings talk in colour and any of the shapes are there to express colour but not outline.’ Art historian Jovan Nicholson brings fresh insights to her work, particularly to the later vibrant prismatic paintings.
Chris Wadsworth et al Art – A Life Changer A discussion led by Chris Wadsworth who ran a gallery for 25 years and wrote about the experience in ‘Life Class’. She asks about the value of art. Why do we want to create, own and visit exhibitions of it?
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Friday 10 March – Studio – The Great Outdoors 10.45am Studio £8
James Macdonald Lockhart Birds of Prey Of all the birds of the British Isles, the raptor reigns supreme, sparking the imagination like no other. James Macdonald Lockhart relates his journey in search of raptors, from harriers drifting along the horizon in Orkney to buzzards circling over Dartmoor. He will change how we think of our skies.
12.30pm Studio £8
Erlend Clouston The Nature Writing of Nan Shepherd In her masterpiece of nature writing ‘Living Mountain’, which was written during World War II, Nan Shepherd describes her journeys into the Cairngorm Mountains. Shepherd’s literary executor and family friend, Erlend Clouston, considers the life and work of the woman who features on the new Scottish £5 note.
2.15pm Studio £8
Vybarr Cregan-Reid The Desire to Run Running reconnects us to places and to our bodies. It lifts the spirit and lets our minds out to play. Take your shoes off and explore the simple human desire to run, in the company of ‘Psychojography’ blogger, Vybarr Cregan-Reid.
James Macdonald Lockhart
Amanda Owen
4pm Studio £8
Louise Gray My Year Killing to Eat
5.45pm Studio £8
Amanda Owen Meet the Yorkshire Shepherdess
Shucking oysters, catching fish, shooting grouse and killing a stag: environmental journalist Louise Gray spent a year eating only animals that she had killed. She asks if it is really possible to be an ethical carnivore?
Amanda Owen and her husband live at Ravenseat – a 2,000 acre hill farm at the head of the River Swale – with their nine children. She tends a flock of 1,000 sheep on the high, wild moors as well as letting out a shepherd’s hut and serving cream teas to visitors. She speaks about the delights, challenges and pressures of life on a hill farm and of ‘making it up as they go along’.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Friday 10 March – Main House
Prue Leith
11am Main House £10
1pm Main House £10
Rory Stewart
Prue Leith Life in Words It’s fair to say that Prue Leith has a busy life. She explores her varied career as a successful business woman, food writer, Michelin starred restaurateur, Chancellor of Queen Margaret University, judge on the BBC programme ‘Great British Menu’ and discusses writing her seventh novel, ‘The Prodigal Daughter’.
Rory Stewart An Odyssey Rory Stewart MP explains how he and his 90-year-old father came to take their final walk together. They undertook the six-hundredmile, thirty-day journey along ‘The Marches’ – the frontier that divides Scotland and England – with Rory Stewart travelling on foot, his father ‘ambushing’ him by car.
Michael Rosen
Julian Baggini
2.30pm Main House £10
Michael Rosen Émile Zola on the Run
4.15pm Main House £10
Julian Baggini Reason and Rationality
In 1898 Émile Zola took on the highest powers in France with an open letter ‘J’accuse’ and was forced to flee to England with no more than the clothes he stood in. Children’s novelist, political columnist and poet Michael Rosen traces Zola’s footsteps during his time in exile.
In the current political climate we don’t have to look far to see that Reason is under siege in the age of ‘post-truth’. Philosopher Julian Baggini argues that we must recover our rationality and calls for discussion and debate within ‘a community of reason’.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 7.30pm event)
John Simpson
6pm Main House ÂŁ10
George Monbiot
John Simpson On the Front Line Being a foreign correspondent is difficult, exciting and undeniably glamorous. World Affairs Editor of BBC News John Simpson explores pivotal moments in our history through the eyes of some of the great foreign correspondents of our time such as Martha Gellhorn, Ernest Hemingway, Don McCullin and Marie Colvin.
7.30 - 9pm Main House ÂŁ10
George Monbiot How Did We Get Into This Mess? What is the dominant ideology that has penetrated so far into our lives that we can no longer see it? Environmentalist, political activist and Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, unmasks it, explains it, and suggests how it might best be confronted.
Saturday 11 March – Main House
Chris Mullin
11am Main House £10
Christina Lamb
Chris Mullin A Political Memoir – The Rise and Fall of New Labour Having been elected as an MP at 39 years old Chris Mullin served in three governmental departments and chaired the Home Affairs Select Committee between 1987-2010. All serious politicians should possess a Hinterland. Chris Mullin was one who did. Former minister and widely acclaimed diarist talks about his recently published memoirs.
12.45pm Main House £10
Christina Lamb Leaving Kabul Leading foreign correspondent Christina Lamb reflects on Afghanistan – a fierce country of pomegranates and war – one that she loves and from which she has reported for 30 years. She discusses the human cost of political failure and how the prosecution of illthought-out wars has led to the spread of terrorism.
Marie-Elsa Bragg
2.30pm Main House £10
Tim Brighouse
Marie-Elsa Bragg in conversation with Peter Stanford A Cumbrian Way of Life Duty Chaplain of Westminster Abbey, Marie-Elsa Bragg talks with Peter Stanford about her life. Her novel ‘Towards Mellbreak’ explores the struggle to preserve Cumbrian traditions in the face of change and the power to be found in the rituals passed down through the generations.
4.15pm Main House £10
Tim Brighouse The Derwentwater Lecture Education: Fit for our Times? How do schools cope with the demands placed on them? And are they the right demands? Is our schooling system based on evidence or some flawed assumptions? Tim Brighouse, a former chief education officer, will explore five ways to make schools more successful and happier places for children, staff and the communities they serve.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 8pm event)
Peter Stanford
6pm Main House £10
Peter Stanford Luther – Man of the Moment On the 500th anniversary of Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Peter Stanford examines the man, the myth and the mass movement that his act of rebellion provoked. Journalist and broadcaster, Peter Stanford explores this complex, often charismatic man of God. Far from being gloomy, as is his reputation, Martin Luther brings new light, and in many ways he is a man of the moment. Please Note: This event detail has changed from that in the printed brochure.
Phil Hammond
8 - 10pm Main House £15 (£12 NHS employees)
Phil Hammond Dr Phil’s Health Revolution NHS doctor, BBC broadcaster, Private Eye journalist and whistleblowing comic Phil Hammond explores how to live and die well, how to survive the NHS and how to help the NHS survive. (Ages 14+) ‘One of the most entertainingly subversive people on the planet.’ The Guardian ‘If Dr Phil were a medicine, you should swig him by the litre’ The Times
Saturday 11 March – Studio – Writing About Other Lives 10.45am Studio £8
12.30pm Studio £8
Frances Wilson The Opium Eater Thomas De Quincey – opiumeater, writer, professional doppelgänger and (fleetingly) a resident of Grasmere – is the subject of Frances Wilson’s celebrated biography ‘Guilty Thing’. She discusses how her chosen form of writing reflects her subject’s disorienting, brilliant unpredictability and rackety existence.
Edmund Gordon Angela Carter – A New Kind of Writer Angela Carter’s life was as rich with incident, as vigorously modern, as unconventional, as dark and ultimately as tragic as anything in her fiction. With access to her manuscripts and journals, Edmund Gordon uncovers surprising new details about this great and subversive writer.
2.15pm Studio £8
Brendan King Beryl Bainbridge – Life, Myths and Stories Famous for her unconventional lifestyle, Beryl Bainbridge also had a ‘cavalier attitude to the notion of truth’ as Brendan King discovered while researching her biography. He also finds letters and diaries that tell a poignant story, as dramatic and ironic as her brilliantly crafted fiction.
Frances Wilson
4pm Studio £8
Edmund Gordon
Jeremy Gavron A Son’s Search for his Mother Jeremy Gavron was four in 1965 when his mother Hannah killed herself. In writing his book ‘Woman on the Edge of Time’, he investigated the circumstances that led to her death. He talks about the process of piecing together a picture of his mother.
5.45pm Studio £8
Helena Kelly Reviewing Jane Austen Stripping away everything we know, or think we know about Jane Austen, Helena Kelly uncovers a radical, spirited and politically engaged woman. She asserts that Austen’s subjects are, in fact, deeply serious and her books subversive – we just haven’t been reading them properly for 200 years.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Sunday 12 March – Studio – The Power of the Past
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough
2.15pm Studio £8
Kathryn Hughes Victorians Undone
4pm Studio £8
Kapka Kassabova Borderlands
Why did George Eliot feel so selfconscious, knowing that her right hand was larger than her left? What made Darwin grow that iconic beard? Venturing into social history, medical discourse, aesthetic practice and religious observance, Kathryn Hughes discusses what it was like to live in a Victorian body.
Kapka Kassabova
10.45am Studio £8
Ian Cobain Secrets and Lies
12.30pm Studio £8
Simon Ings Soviet Science – a Secret History
The Guardian’s investigative reporter, Ian Cobain, reveals how a culture of secrecy has flourished since the passing of the Official Secrets Act. He illustrates how governments have been selective about what they share with the public, leaving a distorted understanding of the workings of the State, our nation’s culture and its past.
What happened when in the early 20th century, a handful of impoverished graduates, entrepreneurs, charlatans and professors bound themselves to a failing government to create a world superpower? New Scientist arts editor, Simon Ings, reveals how Stalin’s philosophical obsessions, and his role as the state’s Great Scientist derailed the Soviet Union’s experiment in ‘rational government’.
5.45pm Studio £8
When Kapka Kassabova was a child, the border-zone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece swarmed with soldiers, spies and fugitives. She recently returned to this region shaped by communism, Nazi occupation and the Ottoman Empire, where she encountered border guards, refugees, botanists and fire worshippers.
Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough Ice and Fire Lecturer in Medieval Literature, Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough has explored the Old Norse world on horseback in Greenland. Travelling with a caribou hunter in Sweden, and retracing the footsteps of Nordic pilgrims in Rome, she illuminates the saga accounts and traces the extraordinary influence of the Vikings from Byzantium to America.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Sunday 12 March – Main House
Christopher Somerville
11am Main House £10
Marcus du Sautoy
Christopher Somerville The Long and Winding Road Travel writer Christopher Somerville has covered the length and breadth of the UK on foot, and has written and broadcast about its history, landscape, wildlife and people for over 25 years. He shares highlights of his journeys from Cornwall to Shetland via Pembrokeshire and Barrowdale and Lake District fells.
Alexander Masters
12.45pm Main House £10
Marcus du Sautoy Not Knowing
2.30pm Main House £10
Alexander Masters Biographical Detective Story
Science is giving us unprecedented insight into the big questions that have challenged humanity. Where did we come from? What is the ultimate destiny of the universe? Mathematician and media presenter, Marcus du Sautoy, reflects upon the limits to what we can discover about our universe.
In 2001, 148 tattered notebooks were discovered lying among broken bricks in a skip in Cambridge. They formed an intimate, anonymous diary, starting in 1952 and ending half a century later. Award-winning biographer Alexander Masters, author of ‘Stuart: A Life Backwards’, uncovers the identity and real history of their author, with an astounding final revelation.
Main House Day Ticket - £32 for 4 events
Alan Johnson
4.15pm Main House ÂŁ10
Alan Johnson In Government Alan Johnson, one of the country’s favourite politicians, has spoken on the first two volumes of his autobiography. These books each cover roughly a 20-year span. The third is about his time in government. It stops in 2010 when the last Labour government was voted out of office. It will be particularly pertinent to hear his views on the current political position.
Booking and Other Information PLEASE NOTE: TICKETS ARE NOT FOR SALE FROM WAYS WITH WORDS.
Priority Booking
In Person
Visit the Box Office at Theatre by the Lake open on performance nights and from 9.30am – 6.30pm at other times.
Book online at www.theatrebythelake.com
Friends of Ways With Words and Theatre by the Lake can book tickets from Tuesday 13 December 2016. General booking starts on Monday 9 January 2017.
By Phone
Festival Passes
Online
Call 017687 74411
Payment Methods
• Festival Pass ‘A’ at £160 gives entry to all Main House events on Fri 3 – Tues 7 March inc. • Festival Pass ‘B’ at £160 gives entry to all Main House events on Wed 8 – Sun 12 March inc.
Ticket Delivery
Passes can be collected from Theatre by the Lake at the start of the festival.
Cash, credit or debit cards (Mastercard/ Visa/ Switch/Delta/Electron/Maestro) are accepted or cheques made payable to Theatre by the Lake.
Tickets booked up to seven days in advance will be posted out for a charge of 70p. Tickets booked within seven days of the performance date will be held for collection from the Box Office.
Reservations
Tickets which have not been paid for within five days of reservation (or for late bookers one hour before the performance) will be offered for re-sale.
Refund and Exchange Policy
If you inform the Box Office at least 48 hours before an event, we will be happy to exchange your tickets for another WBTW 2017 event (subject to availability) or hold a credit for you against a future booking. There is a £1 fee per ticket for this service (with a maximum charge of £10 per transaction). If an event is cancelled you can exchange your ticket for another event at the festival – subject to availability – or for a voucher which you can use at any Ways With Words event in the future. There will be no charge for this. If you don’t wish to exchange you are entitled to a refund of the ticket’s value. (NB this will be a proportion of the value if you bought a day ticket. We do not refund people who hold Festival Passes.)
Group Bookings Please contact the box office by phone for details and reservations.
Young Person Standby Tickets People aged 24 and under can buy tickets normally priced at £10 or £8 for just £5 if purchased 24 hours or less before the event’s start time. Proof of age will be required when you collect your tickets.
Getting to the Theatre To locate the theatre and find out about car parking and transport links please go to the theatre’s website: www.theatrebythelake.com/location
Theatre by the Lake’s Address Theatre by the Lake Lakeside Keswick Cumbria CA12 5DJ
Thank you to: The Advisory Group Members The Words by the Water Staff The Publishers: André Deutsch Books, Arcadia Books, Atlantic Books, Bloodaxe Books, Bloomsbury Publishing, Canongate Books, Carlton Publishing, Chatto and Windus, Corbel Stone Press, Coronet, Ebury Press, Europa Editions, Faber and Faber, Granta, Harper Collins, Haus Publishing, Hodder & Stoughton, IB Tauris, Icon Books, John Blake Books, John Murray, Little, Brown Book Group, Notting Hill Editions, Oneworld Publications, Oxford University Press, Pan Macmillan, Penguin Portfolio, Penguin Random House, Pimpernel Press, Profile Books, Prospero Press, Reaktion Books, Scribe Publications, Strange Attractor Press, Transworld, Unbound, Quercus Books, Verso Books, Vertebrate Publishing, Vintage Books, Yale University Press.
Photo Credits: Christopher Dickey, Ian Forsyth, Marti Friedlander, S. Freund, Marianne Katser, Lucy Sewill, Nina Subin, Colin Thomas, Nick Tucker, Goldsmiths University, Luke Wintour. Landscape images © Jessica Bracken
Our Venue Hosts:
Financial Support:
Support in Kind:
Self catering accommodation www.keswickcottages.co.uk
Speakers include: Tariq Ali Juliet Barker Marie-Elsa Bragg Melvyn Bragg Tim Brighouse Madeleine Bunting Vince Cable Dr Phil Hammond Harriet Harman Roy Hattersley Natalie Haynes Tom Hodgkinson Alan Johnson A.L. Kennedy Emma Jane Kirby Christina Lamb Mark Lawson Prue Leith George Monbiot Chris Mullin David Owen Anna Pasternak Michael Rosen Marcus du Sautoy John Simpson Peter Snow Rory Stewart Chris Tarrant Salley Vickers Mark Watson 017687 74411 wordsbythewater.org.uk