Bridport Literary Festival: Day 6
Event Details
In 2024 The Bridport Literary Festival celebrates its 20th year. The Festival was spawned from the Bridport Prize, established in 1973 and one of the first significant international literary awards for short story writing and poetry. In 2004 a group of literary loving locals – including the then director of the Bridport Arts Centre, the director of the Eype Centre for the Arts and the director of BridLit – got together to ‘brew’ the idea of a celebration of literary voices. Under Tanya Bruce-Lockhart’s direction, the Festival has grown and expanded over the years and events take place at venues throughout the town and West Bay, attracting audiences from across the County and beyond.
The Festival became a registered charity in 2011 and is dependent upon the generosity of Sponsors and Donors and the Friends of the Bridport Literary Festival to sustain a high standard of programme of events while trying to keep ticket prices affordable. Once a prosperous centre of the rope and net making industry, Bridport has now reinvented itself to become a centre of excellence for Culture and the Arts.
This year Dorset County of Culture’s pilot initiative has designated Bridport as Bridport Town of Culture with a programme of events running from July to December. BridLit is very much a part of this initiative and welcomes to the festival all those who read books and love literature.
Day Six: Friday 08 November
Bridport 24 Town of Culture | Briony May Smith | Schools Event
10am at Bridport Library, South Street, Bridport DT6 3NY
Tickets: FREE
This year we welcome Briony May Smith to the library for a stimulating hour of stories, drawing and sharing. Briony is a writer and illustrator of children’s picture books including Margaret’s Unicorn and A Practical Present for Philippa Pheasant and lives in Devon where she takes a lot of inspiration from her rural surroundings. Year 2 from St Mary’s Primary are invited to this event but others are welcome to join in – especially home-schoolers and visitors.
Event 30 | Damien Lewis | SAS Daggers Drawn
10am at The Electric Palace, 35 South Street, Bridport DT6 3NY
Tickets: £15.00 from Bridport Tourist Information Centre 01308 424901 or online Damien Lewis
In the summer of 1944, the SAS were charged with the most crucial D-Day missions, taking on the might of the Nazi Reich deep behind the enemy lines. Facing Hitler’s armoured legions with little more than raw courage, it would take maverick thinking and unconventional warfare to survive and overcome. Theirs was to become a bitter struggle to topple the dark power wielded from Berlin. SAS Daggers Drawn is the latest in WWII historian, Damien Lewis’s series covering the wartime exploits of the SAS and his powerful celebration of the daring-do of these renegade soldiers.
Event 31 | Carol Klein | Hortobiography
12noon at The Electric Palace, 35 South Street, Bridport DT6 3NY
Tickets: £15.00 THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT
Carol Klein is one of Britain’s best loved horticulturists, and for decades gardening has been at the heart of her extraordinary life. From her childhood adventures in Manchester
to her first experiments in plantswomanship at Glebe Cottage, and from training as an artist and a teacher, and then finding an entirely unexpected career as one of Britain’s best known broadcasters, in this long awaited memoir Carol tells the story of the people, places and plants that have shaped her life.
Event 32 | Geoffrey Wheatcroft | Bloody Panico!
2pm at The Electric Palace, 35 South Street, Bridport DT6 3NY
Tickets: £15.00 from Bridport Tourist Information Centre 01308 424901 or online Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Leading political commentator, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, argues that the Tory Party has not only faced the loss of government but also an existential crisis. Having been the most electorally successful party in the history of modern Europe – it has been in power for 85 of the past 135 years – it has now sunk almost into oblivion! So what went wrong? In Bloody Panico!, Wheatcroft charts not just the collapse of the party but its shattering to its foundations. Beyond the pantomime of Boris, Truss and the managerial dullness of Sunak, the fabric of the party is frayed. This could see them cast into the political wilderness for decades.
Event 33 | Lindsey Hilsum | I Brought The War with Me
4pm at The Electric Palace, 35 South Street, Bridport DT6 3NY
Tickets: £15.00 from Bridport Tourist Information Centre 01308 424901 or online Lindsey Hilsum
Lindsey Hilsum, Award Winning Channel 4 News International Editor, has put together a unique and remarkable collection of memories of 40 years of reporting from war zones, together with poems she has set aside from all over the world. In nearly four decades as a journalist covering conflict from Palestine to Kosovo to Rwanda, Lindsey has always carried a book of poetry with her. It helps her make sense of the senseless as the world around her rages and remember those she has met in the darkest of times.
Event 34 | Liam Fox | The Coming Storm
6pm at The Electric Palace, 35 South Street, Bridport DT6 3NY
Tickets: £15.00 from Bridport Tourist Information Centre 01308 424901 or online Liam Fox
With Russia’s aggressive war in Ukraine, the world is gripped by concerns over energy security. Yet, there is an even greater threat ahead – one that is much more likely to shape the events of the 21st century than competition for oil or gas. A combination of an ever-increasing global population, climate change, industrialisation, urbanisation and limited natural resources means that one difficulty will shape the years ahead – water. Liam Fox tells the story of water and the problems it presents in a more complete way than ever before. The Coming Storm unites a range of concerns.
More information about the festival can be found at http://www.bridlit.com
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