lichfield literature
What? Lichfield Festival’s autumnal celebration of the written and spoken word. After three successful years it has a new alliterative name and has expanded to utilise another venue, Lichfield’s Wade Street Church. The event runs over four days. With a wide variety of events in intimate venue it provides an opportunity to get up close to some of England’s foremost writers and thinkers.
Who? Ian Stewart, Sophie Hannah, Peter Robinson, Andrew Lambert, Frances Wilson, David Nokes, Barbara Ewing Matthew Yeo, Robert Hutchinson Stephen Lyttelton Lawrence Goldman- Full programme below
When? 8-11 October 2009
Where? By road: Lichfield, Staffordshire - The A38 and A5 connect near Lichfield and give direct access to the motorway network - M6 Toll, M42, M50, M40, M5/6 and M1.
National coach travel information: telephone 01543 308209.
By train: Direct rail services to Lichfield are operated by Central Trains and Virgin Trains, and via Birmingham by Silverlink and Chiltern Railways.
For further rail travel information call 08457 484950 or have a look at: www.rail.co.uk and www.thetrainline.co.uk.
By air: Birmingham International Airport (30 minute drive) and East Midlands Airport (40 minute drive). | AA Route Planner | multimap
How Much? £2 - £6
Web: Lichfield Festival
Previous festivals:
Here is the complete programme in brief.
thursday 8 october
Professor Stewart's Hoard of Mathematical Treasures
Ian Stewart
6-7pm Wade Street Church £5
Do you know how to organise chaos? How matter balances anti-matter? How to turn a sphere inside out without creasing it? Ian Stewart's, Professor of mathematics and the University of Warwick, is one of the world’s most beloved popular writers on the subject.
In the Shadow of Crows
David Charles Manners
8-9pm Wade Street Church £5
This is a remarkable account of love and loss, a lyrical ode to the wonderful and terrible beauty of India, and a masterly meditation on the interweaving of separate lives.
David Charles Manners teaches yoga at Glyndebourne Opera. He was raised in Lichfield, lives in Sussex but travels to India frequently, where he has a home in the hills of North Bengal.
friday 9 october
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
UV puppet show
Based on the children’s classic by Eric Carle, original music by Michael Klymko
11am Wade Street Church £2
12.30pm Wade Street Church £2
2pm Wade Street Church £2
4:30pm Wade Street Church £2
Since its first publication in 1969 Eric Carle’s story has delighted children and adults across the world. Join us as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of Carle’s classic picture book in a special glow-in-the-dark puppet performance.
The Other Half Lives Sophie Hannah
The Price of Love Peter Robinson
6-7pm Lichfield Library £6 (incl a glass of wine)
The Other Half Lives is the latest dark and many-layered psychological suspense novel from the critically acclaimed and increasingly popular Sophie Hannah.
Peter Robinson’s new collection of short stories is not short of intrigue, and includes a novella featuring the early career of his popular character DCI Banks. You’ve borrowed their books – now’s the chance to meet the authors.
saturday 10 october
The Magnetic North
Notes from the Arctic Circle
Sara Wheeler
11.30am-12.30pm The George Hotel £5
In many ways the Arctic acts as a magnifying glass for ongoing global tensions. There is the paradox that those who live furthest from the sources of man’s contamination of the planet are the ones most affected by it. For the past 15 years Sara has been working as a writer and editor. She is also the author of the highly-acclaimed Terra Incognita: Travels in Antartica.
Open Mic – calling local authors
12-1.30pm Wade Street Church FREE
Open Mic events are more usually associated with folk music or stand-up comedy clubs. Here is one for local authors. Whether you are a novelist, poet, playwright, essayist or non-fiction writer, published or not, young or old, this is a chance to share your writing with others. If you would like to take part, please email the lichfield literature director via info@lichfieldfestival.org.
Franklin
Tragic Hero of Polar Navigation
Andrew Lambert
1.30-2.30pm The George Hotel £5
In 1845, Captain Sir John Franklin led a large, well equipped expedition to complete the conquest of the Canadian Arctic: to find the fabled North West Passage connecting the North Atlantic to the North Pacific. Andrew Lambert is Professor of Naval History at King’s College, London.
The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth
Frances Wilson
2.30-3.30pm Wade Street Church £5
Often presented as a self-effacing virgin or sacrificial saint, Dorothy Wordsworth was a talented writer and an exceptional woman. In her beautifully told biography, Frances Wilson brings Dorothy to life in all her complexity.
Rewriting British History
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Lichfield's place in it
Lawrence Goldman
3.45-4.45pm The George Hotel £5
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, or ODNB, is an illustrated collection of more than 57,000 specially written biographies of the men and women from around the world who have created and shaped the Britain we live in today. Lawrence Goldman is the ODNB’s current editor.
back to topThe Fraud
Barbara Ewing
5-6pm Wade Street Church £5
It is 1763. As candles flicker in the falling dusk along Pall Mall, Filipo di Vecellio, fêted portrait painter from Florence, and his beautiful wife, Angelica, entertain the cream of London's art world in their fashionable London home, with Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough among the guests. Barbara Ewing is a New Zealand-born actress and author who lives in London.
The Hidden
Tobias Hill
6.15-7.15pm The George Hotel £5
Written with astonishing grace and power, The Hidden is a novel of the secrets we keep, the ties that bind us and the true cost of fulfilling our desires. Tobias Hill, author of The Cryptographer and a writer of poetry as well as fiction, appeared at the first lichfield literature weekend. We welcome his return.
Samuel Johnson: A Life
David Nokes
8-9pm The George Hotel £6
In this hugely engaging biography, David Nokes looks beyond Johnson’s remarkable public persona and beyond the figure that Boswell to some extent created. David Nokes is Professor at King’s College, London.
sunday 11 october
House of Treason
The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Dynasty
Robert Hutchinson
2-3pm The George Hotel £5
Robert Hutchinson made his debut as a popular historian with the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Last Days of Henry VIII. This new biography works as both a sequel and 'prequel' to his existing books, telling the dramatic story of the Dukes of Norfolk.
back to topVoodoo Histories
The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History
David Aaronovitch
4-5pm The George Hotel £6
Join journalist and broadcaster David Aaronovitch as he carefully probes and explodes a dozen of the major conspiracy theories of the modern era. David is a writer, broadcaster and commentator on international politics and the media.
Booksellers and the Sale of Knowledge
Matthew Yeo
6-7pm The George Hotel £5
"My name’s Matthew Yeo, I’m from Lichfield in Staffordshire, and I’m doing a PhD in the History of the Book." With these words Matthew came to the nation’s attention as captain of Manchester University’s winning team in the controversial 2009 University Challenge series on BBC2.
Last Chorus
An Autobiographical Medley
Humphrey Lyttelton, compiled and edited by Stephen Lyttelton
8-9pm The George Hotel £5
His son, Stephen, introduces Humph’s sparkling autobiographical kaleidoscope of memories, anecdotes, and entertaining stories from his colourful life, from his childhood as the son of a famous Eton Housemaster, through to his role as the irrepressible chairman of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
