Words
by the Water A Festival of Words and Ideas 4 – 13 March 2016 Theatre by the Lake Keswick
Away With Words . . . Getting away from the normal routine can be an enormous boost to your creativity and general sense of well-being. Ways With Words organises other festivals in the UK and also holiday courses in Italy and in Devon. For full details of all of these go to wayswithwords.co.uk where you can also sign up to receive regular e-newsletters.
Fingals Hotel, Dittisham, Devon Writing and Reading Course 5 – 10 June 2016
Villa Pia, Umbria, Italy Writing and Painting Course 24 September – 1 October 2016 1 – 8 October 2016
We hope to see you back in Keswick next year for Words by the Water 2017 (3 – 12 March) . . . or at Dartington Hall, Devon (8 – 17 July 2016) . . . or in Southwold, Suffolk (10 – 14 November 2016)
Melvyn Bragg, Words by the Water’s President
WELCOME to Words by the Water
In the late 40s and early 50s, before most of you were born, we used to sing a lot around the place. We sang on buses when we went on trips and mystery tours. We sang on the streets, we sang on the beaches, we sang on the hills. We never surrendered. We sang in choirs of different denominations in the town. There was a special room in the pubs called The Singing Room. So it was no surprise when I found out that Wordsworth lacked a lyre and therefore, I presume, could not sing his verse. And there were all sorts of jolly songs going round, which we sang in the early Butlins era and on trips to the seaside, and it went like this:
What’s It All About?
“Here we go again, Happy as can be All good friends, And jolly good company” I think that Kay and Stephen, who keep this wonderful show on the road, could well adopt this as their motto. Welcome to the Literary Festival at Theatre by the Lake which nests at the foot of the jewel of the Lakes. ADDENDUM I wrote the introduction to the Words By The Water programme before the floods came to Cumbria. I simply want to record this because otherwise it would seem heartless. There has been enormous hardship, misery, grief and loss, and Keswick was one of the worst affected areas. I know that Kay is planning to do something about this inside the Festival and I’m sure we will all support her. Meanwhile we will do what Keswick people have been asking everyone to do – keep coming to the town and try to re-institute business as usual.
WORDS! More than anything I think a festival is all about talking. Words dominate; you can guarantee you will hear many on a range of subjects. There are lots of speakers adding their ideas to the mix with much to choose from. After an event you see people gathered together in pairs or small groups in the theatre talking over a cup of coffee. Often they’re discussing the ideas and arguments they’ve just heard. The memories of the place and the events that visitors have loved, stay with them for the rest of their lives. With so many inspiring writers each year it’s an incredible festival to attend. Add to the conversation; find your voice; contribute your words. Festival Directors: Kay Dunbar, Stephen Bristow Chloë Bar-Kar and Videl Bar-Kar
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Friday 4 March – Main House 2pm Main House £10
Howard Jacobson Jewish Identity and the Pound of Flesh
Howard Jacobson
Was Shakespeare anti-Semitic? Man Booker prize-winning author, respected critic and broadcaster Howard Jacobson explores the character of Shylock in his retelling of ‘The Merchant of Venice’. He considers what it means to be a father, a merciful human being and a Jew in the modern world.
3.45pm Main House £10
A.C. Grayling Progress in Troubled Times: Learning from “The Age of Genius”
A.C. Grayling
The 17th Century was witness to a scientific revolution – from the alchemy and astrology of John Dee to the scientific observation and astronomy of Galileo. Professor A.C. Grayling (of New College of the Humanities) charts the birth of the modern mind and considers how traditional ways of thinking lingered amongst the luminaries of the period.
Main House Day Ticket - £24 for 3 events (not including 8pm event)
5.30pm Main House £10
Wendy Holden and Eva Clarke Miracle Babies of the Holocaust
8 – 10pm (inc interval) Main House £21
Dillie Keane Fascinating Aida’s Dillie Keane Dillie Keane takes a short break from her Fascinating Aida pals to present her first solo show in 557 years. With brand-new tunes, grand old favourites, gorgeous songs of love and hilarious songs of utter wickedness, she will break your heart, mend it again and have it sent to the cleaners for pressing. And she’ll give you her recipe for chutney while she’s at it.
Dillie Keane
“Keane, whose piano-playing remains as sprightly and inventive as ever, prompts gales of laughter with merely the raising of a quizzical eyebrow.” (The Times) “Her worldview is laconic, her lyrics lacerating, her voice now capable of going deeper than a Chilean miner.” (The Telegraph)
Wendy Holden and Eva Clarke
Journalist and biographer Wendy Holden tells the remarkable story of three ‘miracle babies’ secretly born in the German slave labour camp, Mauthausen during World War II. United by their experiences, they now consider each other ‘siblings of the heart.’ Wendy Holden will be joined by Eva Clarke, one of the ‘miracle babies’.
Friday 4 March – Studio – Day of Everything
John Woodward
1.45pm Studio £8
Lionel Playford
Lionel Playford and John Woodward Peat Matters and Climate Science in the Northern Peatlands Cumbrian artist Lionel Playford and Professor John Woodward of Northumbria University discuss their two year collaboration exploring global peatlands. This illustrated talk accompanies a special festival exhibition in the Friends’ Gallery. (Visit www. theatrebythelake.com/exhibitions for details and opening times.)
3.15pm Studio £8
Simon Bradley On Railways From the Victorians’ private compartments and railway rugs to air-conditioned carriages, the railways remain a diverse anthology of structures from every period. Joint Editor of the Pevsner guides, Simon Bradley explores the landscape of the railway network in Britain and the trains and passengers who pass through it.
Simon Bradley
4.45pm Studio £8
Valery Rees Angelic
6pm Studio £8
Eden Poets Poetry Reading
For some, angels are no more than metaphors. For others they are real creatures: manifestations of cosmic power. Renaissance scholar Valery Rees discusses the role angels have played in religion and history, from the visions of Ezekiel, to the haunting icons of Andrei Rublev.
Discover the identity of Cumbria’s best-kept literary secret. Eden Poets have been meeting regularly to share their work over the past four years and are now going public. Expect poems that appeal to the head and the heart from this varied poetry collective.
Studio Day Ticket - £24 for 4 events
Saturday 5 March – Studio – Wanderings 10.45am Studio £8
12.15pm Studio £8
2.15pm Studio £8
Steve Boggan Gold Country When Steve Boggan flew to California to prospect for gold in searing temperatures he hadn’t anticipated contracting gold fever. He tells the story of his obsessive quest to understand the allure of the metal, his encounters with gold miners (mostly just scraping a living but all surprisingly happy) and the lessons he learned.
Charles Foster The Beast Inside
Steve Boggan
3.45pm Studio £8
Linda Cracknell Tracing Steps
5.15pm Studio £8
John Gimlette Sri Lanka – Country of Contradictions
He lived as a badger for six weeks, slept in a dirt hole and ate earthworms. He also spent hours curled up in an East London back garden and rooted in bins like an urban fox. Barrister, veterinarian, marathon runner and traveller, Charles Foster grapples with the beast in us all.
Mick Conefrey The First Ascent of K2 For years a controversy has raged over the first ascent of the ‘Savage Mountain’ K2. Today the consensus seems to be that Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli, who made the first ascent, lied about key details of their climb. Looking at original documents and photographs taken in 1954, filmmaker Mick Conefrey reaches a radically different conclusion…
Linda Cracknell
Linda Cracknell treads in the footsteps of others: her father across the Swiss Alps; her younger self on holiday in Cornwall. She notes the paths and marks left behind, both in the land and in memory. Linda Cracknell discusses walking as both a writing tool and as a subject.
Sri Lanka is the size of Ireland and home to 5,000 elephants. It hosts an alluring tourist industry but also a savage civil war. John Gimlette recalls encounters with ex-presidents, cricketers, tea planters and terrorists; takes us on a journey through battlefields, deep jungle, and beguiling cities, and explains why Sri Lanka can be both heavenly and hellish.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Saturday 5 March – Main House
Will Gompertz
11am Main House £10
12.45pm Main House £10
Joan Bakewell
Will Gompertz Creative Thinking What do 16th Century Baroque painter Caravaggio, filmmaker Martin Scorsese and fashion designer Alexander McQueen have in common? BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz tracks common traits of some of the world’s greatest creative thinkers and explores which traits we can adopt to help us achieve extraordinary things.
Joan Bakewell Defying Time Joan Bakewell looks back at the time in which she grew up – from being taught domestic skills, to the wider lessons learnt through politics, lovers and betrayal. She considers how the world has changed and the people and the values she will be leaving behind.
Melvyn Bragg
2.30pm Main House £10
Paul Heiney The Quest
4.15pm Main House £10
Melvyn Bragg The Powerful and the Powerless of the Peasants’ Revolt
After his son committed suicide, aged only 23, television presenter Paul Heiney decided to set sail on a voyage to Cape Horn to connect with his son’s ‘voice’. This turned out to be an important emotional journey. Paul Heiney currently presents the ITV prime-time show ‘Countrywise’.
Lord Bragg’s latest novel ‘Now is the Time’ is set in 1381 at the time of The Peasants’ Revolt, the biggest rebellion in English history. The novel is a powerful re-telling of this extraordinary episode and captures all the drama, passion, patriotism and anger of that time.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 8pm event)
Paul Heiney
6pm Main House £10
Jonathan Bate
Jonathan Bate The Life and Times of Ted Hughes Ted Hughes, the long-serving Poet Laureate, is widely recognised as one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. Renowned scholar Sir Jonathan Bate shares the five years he spent exploring the extensive Hughes’ archives, unearthing new material, to tell the story of Ted Hughes’ life and work.
Bursaries to Words by the Water
If you are between the ages of 17 – 24 you may be eligible to attend events at
Robin Ince
8 – 10pm (inc. interval) Main House £15
Robin Ince Dark and Stormy Night Best known for co-hosting, with Brian Cox, Radio 4’s Sony Gold Award winning ‘The Infinite Monkey Cage’, Robin Ince is also a lover of the horror story. Dark and Stormy Night is a sequel to his critically acclaimed Book Club show. Exploring the great and the awful horror books he read as a child, as well as guiding the audience through his personal journey into the land of reanimated corpses, ghosts and vengeful cats, this is another of Robin Ince’s illustrated comedy talks.
this year’s festival
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“...an evening so bursting with energy and ideas...it’s a bundle of fascinating, surprising digressions” (The Times)
Sunday 6 March – Main House
David Crystal
11am Main House £10
David Aaronovitch
David Crystal To Colon or not to Semicolon – that is the Question Do wild exclamation marks and wandering apostrophes jar on your sensibilities? Expert on the evolution of the English language Professor David Crystal tackles the maze of commas and colons. He explores the origins and stories behind punctuation marks and offers advice on how to punctuate to meet the needs of every occasion.
12.45pm Main House £10
David Aaronovitch Life Among the Communists Journalist, broadcaster and regular chair on Radio 4’s Moral Maze David Aaronovitch was brought up watching Russian movies and attending Socialist Sunday School whilst his peers went to church and watched American TV. He reflects on his early life among communists; his family’s hopes, beliefs and traditions.
2.30pm Main House £10
Andrew Davies
Andrew Davies Adapting the Classics Andrew Davies is a prolific writer of film scripts, adaptations, screenplays, novels and books for children. The popularity of his adaptation of Michael Dobbs’s political thriller, ‘House of Cards’ was a significant influence in Dobbs’s decision to write two sequels, which Andrew Davies also adapted for television. His work includes Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Brideshead Revisited’ (a film) and Charles Dickens’ ‘Little Dorrit’ (a BBC series). ‘Little Dorrit’ won 7 out of its 11 Emmy nominations. The BBC has announced plans for an adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’ to be scripted by Davies. He will talk about the extent and range of his work .
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 8pm event)
Michael Billington
4.15pm Main House £10
6pm Main House £10
Chris Wadsworth
Michael Billington What Makes a Great Play? Michael Billington, Britain’s longestserving theatre critic, shares his personal selection of the 101 greatest plays ranging from the Greeks to the present-day. After a lifetime spent watching theatre he unveils his list and explores the inclusions as well as the omissions.
Chris Wadsworth Behind the Scenes of the Gallery Chris Wadsworth, a born storyteller, draws from her 25 years running a gallery to tell stories about great artists, eccentric clients and her travels around the world. Hear about: the Knob Man, the Reluctant Exhibitionist and her enforced purchase of Magic Knickers – all part of ‘The Life Class’, her latest book.
Gary Bell
8pm Main House £10
Gary Bell A Glimpse Beneath the Wig and Gown Pork pie maker, miner, Asda shelf stacker, fireman and bricklayer: Gary Bell’s CV is extensive. Now a QC he is pillar of the establishment and one of the top defence barristers in the country with his own BBC TV show. He recalls his remarkable journey as he climbed the legal ladder from fraudster to barrister.
Sunday 6 March – Studio – The Feeling Body
Paula Zuccotti
10.45am Studio £8
12.15pm Studio £8
2.15pm Studio £8
Gavin Francis Atlas of Anatomy
3.45pm Studio £8
Tiffany Watt Smith 156 Feelings
5.15pm Studio £8
Jo Marchant The Healing Self
If the body is a foreign country, then to practise medicine is to explore new territory. Edinburgh GP Gavin Francis reflects upon ways the body has been imagined and portrayed over the millennia. He tells stories from his clinic and discusses what it means to be human.
Gavin Francis
Thomas Dixon Museum of Tears The history of weeping in Britain is not simply one of tearstained celebrities. Historian of the Emotions at Queen Mary University of London, Thomas Dixon sheds new light upon the act of weeping, the changing nature of Britishness and the ever-shifting ways in which we express and understand our emotional lives.
Paula Zuccotti Lives in Objects Ethnographer and trends forecaster Paula Zuccotti asks: Can objects tell the story of our lives? She travelled the world to find people of different ages, cultures and professions and asked them to document everything they touched over 24 hours. Gathering these objects together (on average 140 of them) she photographed them in a single shot.
No one really experienced emotions before 1830 – they felt ‘passions’ or ‘accidents of the soul’. Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for the History of the Emotions, Tiffany Watt Smith asks why we feel the way we do and reveals the strange forces that shape our internal worlds.
Can our minds really heal our bodies? Scientific research is uncovering evidence that positive beliefs help the body to maintain and repair itself. Science writer Jo Marchant considers the mind’s ability to influence our health. She strides across a wide terrain of ideas – from hypnosis to meditation, placebos to positive visualisation.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Monday 7 March – Studio – Writing Lives
Sam Jefferson
Janet Denny
10.45am Studio £8
Sam Jefferson Who was Gordon Bennett?
12.15pm Studio £8
Janet Denny Finding the Man
Winter 1866. Three yachts fight a brutally contested Transatlantic race in pursuit of a $90,000 prize. Maritime historian Sam Jefferson gives a rip roaring account of the first ever offshore yacht race, the antics of James Gordon Bennett, playboy owner of the victorious yacht Henrietta and his brave, colourful crew.
Janet Denny’s father died on the day she was born. Decades later she found his wartime diaries. They revealed some surprising facts. She had a mystery to solve. She needed to find the man she had only known as a photo on the mantelpiece and to write his story. But how?
Amy Liptrot
2.15pm Studio £8
Amy Liptrot Return to Orkney
3.45pm Studio £8
Sally Bayley The Diarist’s Journey
At the age of 30, Amy Liptrot found herself washed up back home in Orkney standing unstable on a cliff edge. She relates how she recovered from addiction, spending early mornings swimming in the bracingly cold sea, tracking puffins nesting on sea stacks and watching arctic terns swooping close enough to feel their wings.
Diaries keep secrets; they harbour fantasies and fictional histories. Drawing upon the diaries of Virginia Woolf, Samuel Pepys, Sylvia Plath and others, Sally Bayley, Lecturer in English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford considers this acutely private form of life-writing and how it has been transformed in an age of facebooking, blogging and tweeting.
Studio Day Ticket - £24 for 4 events
Monday 7 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)
Isy Suttie
3 – 5pm Circle Gallery £20 (18 people max.)
Ruth Sutton Workshop – How to Self-Publish Successfully Today more than ever there are many questions to consider when following the selfpublishing route. Ruth Sutton will consider the possibilities for all participants. Bring your own queries; join in the discussion. (Advance booking essential)
HRH Princess Michael of Kent
11am Main House £10
Isy Suttie Adventures in Love
12.45pm Main House £10
HRH Princess Michael of Kent The Anjou Trilogy
Comedian, writer and songsmith Isy Suttie thought she could be a carefree and single twentysomething forever. She takes a wry look at her trials and tribulations in her quest to find a genuinely good relationship. She is best known for playing the love-interest, Dobby in Channel 4’s Peep Show.
HRH Princess Michael of Kent unveils a seldom-told story, enriched by her insider’s perspective of royal life, in the final volume of the Anjou trilogy. She details the rise of Jacques Coeur as he became the confidant of the Anjou royal family and his eventual downfall.
Main House Day Ticket - £32 for 4 events (not including the Breakfast or Workshop)
Anthony Loyd
Rosie Millard The Middle Class and Middle Aged Former BBC Arts correspondent, journalist and writer Rosie Millard discusses her latest novel ‘The Square’. Drawing from her experiences living in an affluent garden square in North London she shares tales from dinner parties, scandalous liaisons and reveals what goes on behind closed doors.
4pm Main House £10
Anthony Loyd The Adrenaline of Combat Roving foreign correspondent for The Times, Anthony Loyd has covered conflicts around the world over 21 years. He has won four major awards for his coverage from Syria – where in 2014 he was kidnapped, beaten and shot by a rebel gang. Anthony Loyd discusses the brutal yet thrilling reality of life as a war journalist.
www.bookscumbria.com
Rosie Millard
2.30pm Main House £10
We are pleased to be supporting Words by the Water and look forward to seeing you at the Festival Bookshop, Theatre by the Lake.
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
Tuesday 8 March – Main House
Francis Beckett
11am Main House £10
Kirsty Gunn
Francis Beckett The Architect of the NHS: A Clem Attlee Biography In 1945 Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee created the NHS and the Welfare State. Author, journalist, and historian Francis Beckett maps how Attlee’s Labour government turned their socialist ideals into legislation that has changed the society in which we live.
12.45pm Main House £10
Janet Ellis Blood on Her Hands Television presenter and actress Janet Ellis is best known for presenting the children’s BBC show Blue Peter. She has fulfilled a long held ambition to write fiction and presents a dark tale set in Georgian England in the summer of 1763 in her debut novel, ‘The Butcher’s Hook’.
Janet Ellis
2.30pm Main House £10
Kirsty Gunn Coming Home
4.15pm Main House £10
Laura Thompson The Stylish and Scandalous Lives of the Mitford Sisters
Kirsty Gunn, Professor of Writing Practice and Study at the University of Dundee, offers a series of beautiful and thought-provoking diary-like reflections on her fellow New Zealander, writer Katherine Mansfield.
The Mitford sisters – Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah were ‘bright young things’ of inter-war London enjoying stylish and scandalous lives. Biographer Laura Thompson offers insights into the sisters as war loomed over Europe when the differences in their outlooks became very stark and very public.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 8pm event)
Irving Finkel
6pm Main House £10
Laura Thompson
Irving Finkel The Oldest Form of Writing Irving Finkel, from the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum, tells of the world’s oldest and most interesting writing system. He will demonstrate, with the aid of stunning images, the extraordinary ideas, thoughts and messages which have come down to us on tablets of clay, written in cuneiform script.
8pm Main House £10
Jenny Balfour-Paul
Jenny Balfour-Paul Indigo The word ‘indigo’ drew Jenny Balfour-Paul to the illustrated journals of forgotten Victorian traveller, Thomas Machell of Crackenthorpe. She relates her adventures tracking Machell (whose life has striking parallels with her own) to India’s indigo and coffee plantations, Polynesian Islands, the China Seas and deserts of Arabia.
Tuesday 8 March – Studio – On Our Doorstep 2.15pm Studio £8
David Hall Everyday Lives in 1930s Bolton In 1937 a team of 90 observers recorded lives of Bolton’s working people – in the pub, the dance hall, at work and on holiday. The project later grew into the Mass Observation movement. David Hall gives a compelling account of pre-war life in an industrial northern town.
Karen Lloyd
10.45am Studio £8
David Hall
Maggie How, Hideyuki Sobue, Gary Boswell Wordsworth – Influence and Inspiration
3.45pm Studio £8
Frank and Marjorie Lawley have spent almost 40 years at Hereton House, a 16th century farmhouse on the Wallington Estate in Northumberland. As well as restoring the house, they have created an exquisite one-acre garden. Photographer Val Corbett celebrates the Lawley’s deeply held principles of craftsmanship, aesthetics, integrity and the ‘rightness of things’.
Writer Maggie How, artist Hideyuki Sobue and poet Gary Boswell share their thoughts on the influence that Wordsworth’s life, writing and his home at Rydal Mount has had on their recent respective work. 12.15pm Studio £8
Karen Lloyd Stories from the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay Taking us on a personal journey around the 60 miles of coastline that make up ‘Nature’s amphitheatre’, Karen Lloyd meets the Queen’s Guide to the Sands, discovers forgotten caves and islands that don’t exist, recalls lives lost to the fast-swirling waters and delights in the simple beauties of Morecambe Bay.
Val Corbett Hereton – Its Restoration and Creation
5.15pm Studio £8
Douglas Chalmers Protecting Cumbria’s Landscapes The craggy slopes beyond tranquil Derwentwater paint a timeless scene, but does this mean permanent? Landscape doesn’t simply exist; in fact much is under threat from erosion, wind farms, light pollution and vast pylons. Friends of the Lake District Director, Douglas Chalmers asks if the district faces a slide into decline.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Wednesday 9 March – Studio – Women and Ideas 10.45am Studio £8
12.15pm Studio £8
Claire Fuller The Novel Outside Me Claire Fuller’s first novel ‘Our Endless Numbered Days’ caused a stir. There was an auction to buy the rights, then she won the 2015 Desmond Elliot Prize. She talks about starting to write at the age of 40, her journey into publishing and her whirlwind year.
Joanna Walsh Where Desires go on Holiday Joanna Walsh considers how the hotel is the flip side of home. Invoking everyone from Freud to Forster to Mae West to the Marx Brothers, Joanna Walsh recalls her experiences as a hotel reviewer and reflects upon these restless places – their language, and the state of never being left alone.
2.15pm Studio £8
Virginia Baily Turning Ideas into Stories A trumpet, a golden ring and a steamy jazz club in 1950s Rome: co-editor of the short story journal Riptide, Virginia Baily uncovers the objects, music, images and places that informed and inspired her second novel ‘Early One Morning’ and discusses the transformative elements that can turn ideas into stories.
Bel Mooney
Virginia Baily
3.45pm Studio £8
Joanna Kavenna On Reality and Strangeness
5.30pm Studio £8
Bel Mooney Reading Between the Lines
Joanna Kavenna is one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. Her new philosophical novel is about the strangeness of reality. She discusses the problem of differentiating between reality and unreality in works of fiction, and questions the use of terms like realistic and unrealistic and the value-laden ways in which they are used.
Drawing upon problems and responses from her popular column in the Daily Mail, where she shares her life experiences of grief, forgiveness and joy with unflinching honesty, Bel Mooney reflects on what being an advice columnist has taught her over the years.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Wednesday 9 March – Main House
Chris Rapley
11am Main House £10
12.45pm Main House £10
Bruce Fogle
Chris Rapley The Changing Climate In 2015 the world’s nations met to determine a course of action to respond to climate change. Chris Rapley, one of the most renowned climate scientists, has written ‘2071, The World We’ll Leave Our Grandchildren’. ‘2071’ started off as a sell-out play at the Royal Court. The Times wrote: “If you’re in any doubt that climate change is the most urgent issue of the century, I urge you to see this theatrical lecture.”
Bruce Fogle Boy’s Eye View of a Summer Holiday Vet Bruce Fogle offers a boy’s-eye view of the world of the summer of 1954, which he spent with his family at Long Point on Lake Chemong. He shares memories of his growing awareness of the harshness of the adult world, the changing family dynamics and the cruelty of other children.
Hugh Fraser
Christopher Matthew
2.30pm Main House £10
Hugh Fraser From Stage to Page
4.15pm Main House £10
Christopher Matthew Romance for the Young at Heart
Hugh Fraser is best known as the actor who played Captain Hastings alongside David Suchet’s Poirot in the long-running and muchloved television series. It seems that some of Agatha Christie’s imagination for criminal plots has inspired him. Hugh makes his debut as a crime writer with his first novel, ‘Harm’.
Warm, witty and charming poems for those negotiating Tinder in their sixties or being stalked on the Internet by old flames from the 1970s. Christopher Matthew’s reading of his poems will offer both hope and despair to those looking for romance in later life.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including 8pm event)
Meg Rosoff
James Rebanks
6pm Main House £10
Meg Rosoff A Dog’s Dinner
8pm Main House £10
James Rebanks The Shepherd’s Year
Million-copy bestselling, prizewinning author of ‘How I Live Now’, Meg Rosoff has written her first novel for adults, ‘Jonathan Unleashed’. A comedy set in Manhattan, she shares her stories of life in New York and writing for all ages.
James Rebanks is a shepherd of Herdwick sheep. His family have farmed in and around the Lake District for more than 600 years. It is a disappearing lifestyle with now only 300 surviving fell-farming families. He maps a shepherd’s year, reflecting on the art of shepherding and his own connection to the land.
Thursday 10 March – Main House
Anna Pavord
11am Main House £10
Anna Pavord The Nature of the British Landscape As gardening correspondent for The Independent and chair of the Gardens Panel for the National Trust Anna Pavord has journeyed widely around the UK. She shares her reflections upon the relationship between earth and people and the landscape’s potential to comfort, awe and mesmerise.
12.45pm Main House £10
Anne Rowe and Avril Horner Iris Murdoch: Her Life in Letters Anne Rowe, Associate Professor in English Literature and Director of the Iris Murdoch Archive Project and Avril Horner, Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Kingston University, London, explore the great mind, humour and personal life of Iris Murdoch revealed in her letters, from schoolgirl days to her last years.
Main House Day Ticket - £32 for 4 events (not including 8pm event)
Anne Rowe and Avril Horner
Iris Murdoch
2.30pm Main House £10
A.A. Gill Recovery Sunday Times columnist, television critic and restaurant reviewer A.A. Gill lost memories and friends through his addiction to alcohol and drugs. Thirty years ago, aged thirty, he gained his sobriety in a treatment centre. He explores the time between the end of his marriage and the end of his drinking.
A.A. Gill
4.15pm Main House £10
Claire Irvin Peacefulness, Dignity and Mindfulness for Women Mindfulness is increasingly hailed as the antidote to anxiety, stress, irritability and depression. Leading editor and journalist Claire Irvin takes a solution-based approach to being calm in a hectic world. She offers a guide on how to find rest in the present moment in our timepressed lives.
8pm Main House £10
Max Adams
Claire Irvin
Max Adams Imprints Max Adams, archaeologist, woodsman and traveller, made a series of journeys through Dark Age landscapes and paths. He offers insight into the lives of peasants, monks and kings and illuminates an enigmatic but exciting period of our island’s history.
Thursday 10 March – Studio – Bookcase Day Bookcase is a vast secondhand and antiquarian bookshop in Carlisle that has been publishing books of local interest for over twenty years with some eighty or so books in the current catalogue. Today features some of the latest publications. 10.45am Studio £8
Norman Nicholson The Destruction of Mardale and the Building of the Haweswater Dam A series of remarkable photographs record the construction of the Haweswater Dam and the village of Burnbanks in the 1930s. Norman Nicholson tells of the dismantling of the church, the Dun Bull Hotel, the village of Mardale and their replacement by a vast reservoir to supply water to Manchester.
12.15pm Studio £8
Ian Payne The Story of the Alhambra Cinema, Keswick Canon Rawnsley warned that the cinema was an incitement to ‘dissipation, grossness, illicit passions, theft, robbery, arson and homicide’. For 100 years residents (and visitors sheltering from the rain) have laughed, cried, courted and misbehaved in Keswick’s Alhambra.
2.15pm Studio £8
3.45pm Studio £8
Stephen Matthews Travellers in Borrowdale For a hundred years from 1750, Borrowdale was perhaps the most celebrated landscape in Britain. Stephen Matthews tells how numerous travellers and tourists described the changing scene. They found both beauty and horror in ‘the Jaws of Borrowdale’.
Peter Roebuck Cattle Droving and the Cumbrian Economy Cattle-droving generated the biggest trade in agricultural produce that Britain has ever seen and much of the traffic from Scotland came through Cumbria. It affected its farming, the growth of manufacturing and service industries and Cumbria’s prosperity.
5.15pm Studio £8
Anthony Seward William Hutchinson and the Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and Cumberland Anthony Seward celebrates William Hutchinson, solicitor and man of letters from Barnard Castle, whose ‘Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and Cumberland’ written in 1774 was probably the first published guide to the district.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Friday 11 March – Studio – In the Wild
John Lister-Kaye
2.15pm Studio £8
John Aitchison Close Up to Nature
3.45pm Studio £8
Robert Penn One Mighty Ash
John Aitchison witnessed the lives of animals across the world. He has filmed Antarctic leopard seals preying on baby penguins. He has followed the trail of India’s last tigers. Now he reveals what happens behind the scenes, beyond the camera – touching moments, triumphs and disasters.
Jim Crumley
10.45am Studio £8
John Lister-Kaye My Wild Life at Aigas
12.15pm Studio £8
Jim Crumley The Future of Britain’s Beavers
Aigas – where golden eagles drift overhead and ospreys crash into the loch – was Scotland’s first Field Centre. For 40 years it has been the home of the distinguished naturalist and conservationist, Sir John Lister-Kaye. He explains how birds have been at the heart of his work and life, and how they are important indicators of environmental health and change.
Hundreds of years after their extinction in these isles, beavers are back. Nature writer Jim Crumley reveals how these skilled engineers of the natural world are having a dramatic effect on our wild landscapes. He examines the ecological and economic impact of their reintroduction.
6pm Studio £8
When Robert Penn felled a great ash from a Welsh wood he asked: How many things can be made from one tree? This took him on a journey through Britain, Europe and the USA where he watched craftsmen make artefacts that have been in use for centuries – from cartwheels to toboggans to hurley sticks.
Grevel Lindop A Poetry Reading With subjects shifting from the hidden histories of words to the folklore of yew trees, and places ranging from a haunted English library to a derelict Australian funfair, Grevel Lindop reads from the most recent volume of his poetry, ‘Luna Park’.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Friday 11 March – Main House
Jonathan Fenby
11am Main House £10
12.45pm Main House £10
Juliet Barker
Jonathan Fenby 200 years of French History Jonathan Fenby, former editor of the Observer and the South China Morning Post, tells of France’s history including its struggle to become the leader of the European Union. France has undergone huge social changes and he asks what this nation, which considers itself exceptional, really stands for.
Juliet Barker Demolishing the Myth of the Brontës The story of the Brontës is well documented as a doomed family of genius. Biographer and historian Juliet Barker sheds new light on this literary family, challenges some commonly held misconceptions and shares her first-hand research from Brontë manuscripts and historical documents previously overlooked.
David Hare
2.30pm Main House £10
David Hare The Apprenticeship of David Hare When, in 2000, the National Theatre published its poll of the hundred best plays of the 20th Century David Hare had written five of them. He recalls his childhood, his early apprenticeship to the trade of dramatist and the price he and those around him paid for his decision to become a playwright.
4.15pm Main House £10
Grevel Lindop The Extraordinary and Controversial Inkling: Charles Williams Charles Williams was a novelist, poet, magician and a member of the Oxford literary group, The Inklings. Deeply involved in the occult he advocated an approach to God through sexual love and acquired a following of devoted disciples. Biographer Grevel Lindop explores Williams’ somewhat bizarre and dramatic life.
Main House Day Ticket - £32 for 4 events (not including 6pm event)
Grevel Lindop
6pm Main House £14 (talk and film)
John Dermot Turing
John Dermot Turing Decoding Alan Turing While working at Bletchley Park code breaker and pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing invented the machine that cracked the Enigma code. He is now widely regarded as a British war hero mistreated by an unappreciative country. His nephew, Sir John Dermot Turing, takes a fresh look at Alan Turing’s life, innovation and the creation of a legend. At 7pm there will be a 30 minute interval, and then at 7.30pm – Film: The Imitation Game (12)
Saturday 12 March – Main House
Alice Roberts
11am Mirehouse Free (but ticketed)
Richard Dawkins
Mirehouse / Words by the Water Poetry Competition Event
12.45pm Main House £10
Unlike the Romans the Celts did not write their own history, so the stories of many heroic Celtic men and women have been lost. Following the popular BBC series Professor Alice Roberts reveals the remarkable story of the Celts: their origins, how they lived and thrived and their enduring legacy.
Grevel Lindop – the judge of this year’s competition – will talk about the process of judging and will introduce the winning poems, some of which will be read at this event. This will be followed by Grevel Lindop reading a few of his own poems.
11am Main House £10
Ian Wainwright Shakespeare and the Open Stages Project Through ‘Open Stages’ the Royal Shakespeare Company is breaking down the cultural and social barriers that prevent many people from appreciating Shakespeare’s plays. Ian Wainwright is a Producer for the RSC and for ‘Open Stages’. He explains his breathtaking, creative work.
Alice Roberts The Lost Stories of the Celts
2.30pm Main House £10
Richard Dawkins Life So Far Author of ‘The God Delusion’ and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins reviews his life from teaching in Oxford to the job of a travelling scientist. He offers insights into the evolution of his ideas about science over the course of his career as thinker, teacher and writer.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events (not including Mirehouse or 8pm event)
Alister McGrath
4.15pm Main House £10
George Alberti
George Alberti Derwentwater Lecture: The NHS Today “Top down, bottom up or muddle in the middle?”, Sir George Alberti looks at the NHS today. He is a British doctor whose long-standing special area is diabetes mellitus, in connection with which he has published many research papers and served on several national and international committees.
6pm Main House £10
Richard Dawkins in conversation with Alister McGrath Explanations and Explorations Noted atheist Richard Dawkins, Emeritus Fellow of New College Oxford, discusses religion and science with Alister McGrath, Anglican priest and Professor in Science and Religion at Oxford University and Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London.
Ben Miller
8pm Main House £10
Ben Miller Life Beyond Earth Are we alone in the universe? Recently, scientists have made exciting strides towards answering that question. Comedian (one half of comedy double act Armstrong and Miller) and bestselling science writer Ben Miller explores the beginnings of life on Earth and discusses the very latest search for alien intelligence.
Saturday 12 March – Studio – Global Perspectives 10.45am Studio £8
Ben Rawlence Inside Dadaab – the World’s Largest Refugee Camp To charity workers Dadaab is a humanitarian crisis; to the Kenyan government it’s a nursery for terrorists; but to its half a million residents it’s their last resort. Former Human Rights Watch researcher, Ben Rawlence, who has spent considerable time in the camp, tells their astonishing stories.
12.15pm Studio £8
Tom Blass How the North Sea Shaped the World Saturnine and quick-tempered, the North Sea is often overlooked. But as a theatre of war and cultural crossing point it has determined the fates of nations. Tom Blass takes a bracing journey from the banks of the Humber to the shores of Jutland, piecing together histories, revealing truths and fictions otherwise submerged.
2.15pm Studio £8
Oliver Morton Can Geo-engineering Change the World? A stratospheric veil against the sun and the cultivation of photosynthetic plankton are among the possible interventions that might slow global warming. Oliver Morton unpicks the moral implications of our responses to climate change.
Ben Rawlence
3.45pm Studio £8
Luke Harding
Andrew Dickson Shakespeare Across the Globe What is it about a man from Warwickshire, who never set foot outside England, that has made him famous around the globe? Andrew Dickson reveals discoveries made on his journey across four continents in his attempt to understand how Shakespeare has become such an international phenomenon.
5.15pm Studio £8
Luke Harding The Inside Story of Alexander Litvinenko Alexander Litvinenko was brutally poisoned by polonium – a lethal and highly radioactive substance – in London in 2006. Guardian foreign correspondent Luke Harding, who spent nearly a decade reporting on the Litvinenko case, sheds light on the man who had made some powerful enemies in Russia.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Sunday 13 March – Studio – The Power of the Past 2.15pm Studio £8
Laura Cumming
10.45am Studio £8
‘Game of Thrones’ is the subject of debate in newspapers, by PhD students and by cultural commentators. Exploring sigils, giants, dragons and direwolves in medieval texts, Carolyne Larrington, scholar in medieval English literature at St John’s College, Oxford, reveals how George R.R. Martin plundered the Middle Ages to construct his remarkable universe. 12.15pm Studio £8
Portugal’s navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East. Drawing on first hand accounts, distinguished historian Roger Crowley brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band of conquerors.
Kate Williams
Carolyne Larrington From the Wall to the Shadowlands
Robert Chapman A British History of Psychedelia Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Lancaster, Robert Chapman explores the first 200 years of psychedelia – its roots in fairy tales, fairgrounds, music hall and that peculiarly British strand of surrealism that culminated in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery tour.
Roger Crowley Portugal’s Rise to World Empire
3.45pm Studio £8
5.15pm Studio £8
Laura Cumming One Portrait, Two Lives When Observer art critic Laura Cumming stumbled on a trial held in 1845 involving a Reading bookseller and a lost Velasquez portrait, it sent her on a search. First she tracked the picture and the elusive painter, then the ruinous fortunes of the bookseller. She discusses how great works of art can profoundly affect us.
Kate Williams The Aftermath of the Great War Television historian, Kate Williams shows how significant historical events affect the lives of people caught up in them. Her recent novel focuses on a family struggling to piece together the fragments of their lives after the Great War. The historian discusses how she combines captivating storytelling with impeccable research.
Studio Day Ticket - £30 for 5 events
Sunday 13 March – Main House
Salley Vickers
11am Main House £10
Linda Blair
Salley Vickers Royal Literary Fund Talk – Shakespeare What does Shakespeare mean to us today? What is his influence on contemporary writers? Salley Vickers was a university lecturer in English Literature then became a Jungian Psychoanalyst. After the success of her first novel, ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’, she began writing full time and now lectures widely on many subjects, particularly the connections between art, literature, psychology and religion. 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
Paul Mason
12.45pm Main House £10
Ben Okri
Linda Blair How To Streamline Your Life After her great success at last year’s festival, talking about her book on mindfulness, Linda Blair, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, returns to talk about simplifying life and cultivating calm. Her ideas are designed to promote balance, purpose and tranquility.
2.30pm Main House £10
Paul Mason Life After Capitalism Can we predict and shape, rather than simply react to, economic change? Award-winning Channel 4 presenter, Paul Mason, explores the idea that capitalism has reached its limits. and considers if the recent financial crisis offers the chance to create a more socially just and sustainable global economy.
Main House Day Ticket - £40 for 5 events
Thank you to: The Advisory Group Members The Words by the Water Staff The Publishers:
James Naughtie
4.15pm Main House £10
6pm Main House £10
Ben Okri Singing My Song Audiences are disturbed, enlightened, and transformed – each in a different way – by Ben Okri’s talks and books. His words lead to unexpected, poetic and metaphysical revelations. He is the author of The Booker prizewinning novel ‘The Famished Road’ and now has written ‘The Age of Magic’ his first novel in seven years. Expect an enchanting and unusual event.
James Naughtie Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow James Naughtie no longer has to set his alarm clock for 3am having left the hot-seat on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme after 21 years and has embarked on a new career path as a novelist. Following the success of his first book he discusses his life and latest work – a political thriller set in Paris 1968.
Armstrong Nyman, Bantham Press, Biteback Publishing, Bloomsbury Publishing, The Bodley Head, British Museum Press, Canongate Books, Carcanet Press Ltd, Chatto and Windus, Constable, Faber and Faber, Frances Lincoln, Freight Books, Granta, Guardian Faber, Harper Collins, Haus Publishing, Head of Zeus, The History Press, Hodder and Stoughton, Hogarth Press, IB Tauris, John Murray, Legend Press, Little, Brown, Medina Publishing Ltd, Monday Books, Notting Hill Editions, Oneworld Publications, Orion Publishing Group, Oxford University Press, Particular Books, Penguin Random House, Pimpernel Press, Portabello Books, Profile Books, Quercus, Saraband, September Publishing, Shine Out Loud Publishing, Silverwood Books, Simon and Schuster, Transworld, Unbound Publishing, Vintage, Virago, Wellcome Collection.
Our Venue Hosts:
Financial Support:
The Royal Literary Fund
Support in Kind:
Self catering accommodation www.keswickcottages.co.uk
Photo Credits: Nigel Barklie, Dale Cherry, Hilary Crystal, Jonny Donovan, Chris Gilbert, David Graeme-Baker, Paul Hackett, Charlie Hopkinson, Keke Keukelaar, Lisa Swarna Khanna, Jan Klos, Jill Krementz, Brigitte Lacombe, Callum Leach, Warwick Lister-Kaye, Eamonn McCabe, Kona McPhee, Peter Marlow, William Matthew, Zoe Norfolk, Colin Thomas, Scott Wishart.
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 Monday 14 December 2015. General booking starts on Monday 4 January 2016.
By Phone
Festival Passes
Online
Call 017687 74411
Payment Methods
• Festival Pass ‘A’ at £160 gives entry to all Main House events on Fri 4 – Tues 8 March inc. • Festival Pass ‘B’ at £160 gives entry to all Main House events on Wed 9 – Sun 13 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 2016 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
The Words by the Water Mirehouse Poetry Competition JUDGE:
COMPETITION THEME: “Old Echoes Hidden in the Wall” (Tennyson)
Grevel Lindop
Grevel Lindop is a poet, biographer, critic, essayist: a writer and academic.
CONDITIONS OF ENTRY : • Entries are invited for original poems of no more than 40 lines. • Entry fee £4.50 per poem. • Entrants may submit as many poems as they wish. • No entry should have been accepted for publication, read on radio/television or stage or have been awarded a prize in any other competition.
Ist Prize £500 In addition, the prize-winning poem and eight highly commended poems will be displayed on the Mirehouse Poetry Walk and appear on the Mirehouse website. The eight highly commended poets will each receive a box of new books (value £100).
There will be a reading of some of the winning poems at an event with the judge, Grevel Lindop at Mirehouse on Saturday 12 March 2016 at 11am (See this programme for full event details.)
FORMAT FOR ENTRIES : • Two copies of each poem must be submitted. • Entries should be typed on one side of paper. • Entrants must not put names or addresses on the work but must put name, address and titles of poems on a separate sheet. • Cheques payable to ‘Ways With Words’ and sent with entries to: Mirehouse Poetry Competition, Droridge Farm, Dartington, Totnes, Devon TQ9 6JG Alternatively the entry poems can be emailed to admin@wayswithwords.co.uk under the subject heading, Poetry Competition. If this method of submittimg poems is used it will be necessary to phone 01803 867373 and pay the entry fee for the poems by card or else to send a cheque through the post. Closing Date - Thursday 11 February 2016 Winners notified by Thursday 3 March 2016 Entrants should enclose an s.a.e. for notification of results. (Emailed entries will be notified by email.) Entries cannot be returned.
The Poetry Prize is supported by Mirehouse to celebrate Mirehouse’s longstanding literary connections with writers including Wordsworth, Southey, Tennyson, Carlyle and Thackeray.
Speakers include: David Aaronovitch Joan Bakewell Jonathan Bate Michael Billington Melvyn Bragg Andrew Davies Richard Dawkins Janet Ellis Irving Finkel Hugh Fraser A.A. Gill Will Gompertz A.C. Grayling David Hare Paul Heiney Robin Ince Howard Jacobson Dillie Keane HRH Princess Michael of Kent John Lister-Kaye Paul Mason Rosie Millard Bel Mooney James Naughtie Ben Okri Anna Pavord James Rebanks Alice Roberts Isy Suttie John Dermot Turing – and more 017687 74411
www.wordsbythewater.org.uk