What's On | Independent Woodstock Literary Festival
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The Cotswolds Through Writers' and Artists' Eyes: Readings and Images
Some writers and artists were Cotswolds-born and bred. Some fell in love with the region and settled there for life. And a few couldn't wait to get away.
Jane Bingham will take you on a literary and artistic tour of the Cotswolds. Starting at Adlestrop station with Edward Thomas, the virtual tour will feature William Morris at Kelmscott, Stanley Spencer at Leonard Stanley, Laurie Lee in Slad, Barbara Pym in Finstock, T. S. Eliot at Burnt Norton, John Buchan in Wychwood Forest and Henry James in Broadway. There will also be a brief stop at Woodstock, to view the legend of "Fair Rosamund" through the eyes of some Pre-Raphaelite artists. Jane's talk is based on research for her recent book, The Cotswolds: A Cultural History.
With readings by Dennis Hamley.
Sponsored by Belgravia Gallery
Running Time: 1hr
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution
A globally renowned scientist, a distinguished academic and the most famously vocal atheist in the western world, Richard Dawkins provokes and delights audiences with his dazzling polemics of rationalism and disbelief.
His new book, The Greatest Show On Earth, is a fresh consideration of Darwin's theory of evolution. A century and a half after the publication of The Origin of Species, evolution is accepted as scientific fact by all scientists (and, incidentally, most theologians) but millions of people still question its veracity. Dawkins takes on the creationists, the believers in "Intelligent Design" and those who question the concept of evolution by natural selection.
At a time when anti-evolutionary thought is flourishing in Britain as well as America, this is an intellectual call to arms. Come and hear the bracing arguments of Professor Dawkins, the Henry V of 21st century rational debate.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
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SOLD OUT
Prices: £10
A Short History of Celebrity
Love it or hate it, celebrity is one of the dominant features of modern life; yet it is one of the least understood. Fred Inglis's Short History gives an entertaining and enlightening social history of modern celebrity from 18th century London to today's Hollywood. Starting with the first modern celebrities in mid-18th-century London, including Samuel Johnson, he follows the story through to the rise of political celebrities such as Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin and the democratisation of celebrity in the post-war decades as actors, rock stars and sports heroes became objects of "the frenzy of renown."
He argues that celebrity is a mirror, reflecting some of the worst as well as some of the best aspects of modern history. He also considers how the lives of the rich and famous provide not only entertainment but also social cohesion and, like morality plays, offer examples of how - and how not - to behave.
Presented by Princeton University Press
Running Time: 1hr
Who knows more about food - chefs or critics?
Richard Corrigan, Rowley Leigh, Matthew Norman and John Walsh, Chaired by Tracey MacLeod
Cooks, chefs, super-chefs and masterchefs - they deal in the preparation of meals every day. But do they necessarily appreciate food more keenly than the army of food critics out there, who put their creations to the test every week in newspaper reviews?
Two chefs, Richard Corrigan, of Corrigans of Mayfair and Rowley Leigh of Kensington Place and Café Anglais, will do battle with John Walsh, deceptively mild-mannered restaurant critic of the Independent, in debating the motion "Those Who Cook For A Living Know More About Food Than Those Who Eat For A Living"
Chaired by the wise, subtle and no-nonsense Tracey MacLeod, Food Writers Guild Restaurant Reviewer of the Year.
It's not to be missed. It promises to be a mouth-watering event. Come along, and have a free glass of wine on The Independent.
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Book Tickets
Prices: Free (must book a ticket)
Young Romantics - The Shelleys, Byron and Other Tangled Lives
Shattering the myth of the Romantic poet as a solitary, introspective genius, Daisy Hay reveals the communal existence of the astonishingly youthful circle who gathered around Percy Shelley, Leigh Hunt and Lord Byron in the decade following 1813. Her Young Romantics offers tales of love, betrayal, sacrifice and friendship, all of which were played out against a background of political turbulence and intense literary creativity.
She also reveals the central part played in the drama by Elizabeth Kent, Leigh Hunt's sister-in-law, a writer and botanist. And among the wide range of manuscript and archival sources on which she draws is a recently-discovered fragment of memoir by Claire Clairmont, who accompanied the Shelleys on their honeymoon and later became Byron's mistress.
Presented by The Woodstock Literature Society
Running Time: 1hr
Mao’s Great Famine - The Story of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe 1958-62
Between 1958 and 1962, Mao Zedong threw his country into turmoil with the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to catch up and to overtake the Western World. China descended into the hell of starvation. At first the carcasses of diseased livestock were unearthed for food, but as famine tightened its grip, some people eventually dug up, boiled and ate human bodies.
Mao's experiment ended in one of the greatest catastrophes the world has ever known, with at least 45 million people being worked, starved or beaten to death.
Frank Dikötter is the only author to have been into the Chinese archives since they were reopened. He reveals what happened in the corridors of power, uncovers the everyday experiences of ordinary people, and gives voice to the dead and disenfranchised - recasting the history of the People's Republic of China.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
The town of Woodstock is both ancient and royal, built at the gates of a park where medieval kings came to hunt. In 1703 the manor of Woodstock was given to John, Duke of Marlborough. Consequently, Sir John Vanbrugh designed Blenheim Palace, a masterpiece of English baroque and the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
Join Alastair Lack for a walking tour of Woodstock and Blenheim Park, followed by tea at The Feathers Hotel.
Alastair Lack worked for BBC World Service for nearly 30 years and was Head of English Programmes. He also worked in television and Radio 4.
Running Time: 2hrs
Biographers Sally Cline and Carole Angier, two distinguished literary biographers, offer practical advice on how we can all write our life stories. Angier and Cline provide personal tips and tales from 32 top British and American life writers, and show how style, tone and the selection of detail make the difference in writing about your own life and career.
Sally Cline is an award-winning biographer and the author of 10 books, including biographies of Radcliffe Hall and Zelda Fitzgerald. She taught for many years at Cambridge University and has an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Anglia Ruskin University, where she is writer in residence and a mentor on the MA in Creative Writing.
Carole Angier is the author of Jean Rhys: Life and Work, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize and winner of the Writer's Guild Non-Fiction Award. She has also written The Double Bond: A Life of Primo Levi. Carole is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Oxford Brookes University, and teaches life writing at Birkbeck College, London.
Running Time: 1:30
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SOLD OUT
Prices: £15
Words, Words, Words
Robert Fisk has reported from the Middle East for 34 years, covering all the big stories in the region from the 1979
Iranian revolution to the Israeli invasions of Lebanon, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
The Independent’s correspondent, Fisk, has been named British Journalist of the Year seven times and is one
of the few western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden. His best-selling books include Pity the Nation:
Lebanon at War, and The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East.
Charles Glass is a writer and broadcaster who began his career with ABC News in Beirut in 1973 and over the next
twenty years covered wars in Africa, Iraq and Bosnia as well as the major conflicts of the Middle East. Since 1993
he has been a freelance writer and film-maker and has lectured widely on the Middle East, US foreign policy,
world journalism and human rights. Together they discuss the misuse of words when describing conflict in the
Middle East and beyond.
Running Time: 1hr
Passionate, angry, transgressive and furiously eloquent, Steven Berkoff is acclaimed as a playwright, actor and director. The author of East, Greek, West and Sink the Belgrano, he has starred in films as diverse as A Clockwork Orange, Octopussy and Beverley Hills Cop, typically cast as a cold-eyed villain. At the Woodstock festival he talks to John Walsh of The Independent about his early life and the beginning of his theatrical career.
He was born in the East End two years before the outbreak of World War II, and life for the Berkoff family was tough. Relief came when his mother took him to New York to live for a while in the Bronx. On returning to London he began to misbehave at school, become involved with violent gangs, and ended up in a horrific remand home for stealing a bicycle. His life changed when he was successfully auditioned for a drama school, and was granted a scholarship.
The Quintessential Anthology of Gin . . . and Hendrick's in Particular
Gin has come a long way since the days of Hogarth's infamous drawing and the craze of the early 1700s. Examining the history of gin and its growing popularity amongst the world's leading bartenders, Xavier Padovani explores the different techniques used by distillers to craft particular flavours. Whether gin novice or aficionado, a rare opportunity to taste the constituent distillates of the award-winning Hendrick's Gin will both surprise and delight.
Numbers limited to 20, so book now.
Fiction and History
The first three novels in Harry Sidebottom's Warrior of Rome series have all gone top five in the UK fiction charts. The novels are action-adventure thrillers with a meticulously researched historical background, but they also raise questions and ideas more normally found in 'literary novels'. In the latest, Lion of the Sun, the corrosive effects of conscience are explored.
Harry Sidebottom, as well as writing novels, researches and teaches Ancient History at the University of Oxford. He talks to literary journalist and broadcaster David Freeman about the relationships between history and fiction.
Running Time: 1hr
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves
Matt Ridley, the acclaimed author of the classics Genome and Nature via Nurture, turns from investigating human nature to charting human progress.
Over 10,000 years ago, there were fewer than 10 million people on the planet. Today there are more than 6 billion, 99 per cent of whom are better fed, better sheltered, better entertained and better protected against disease than their Stone Age ancestors. Yet perversely, however much things improve from the way they used to be, people still cling to the belief that the future will be nothing but disastrous.
Matt Ridely offers a counter blast to the prevailing pessimism of our age, and proves that things really are getting better. He presents surprisingly simple answer to the questions of how humans progress, arguing that we move forward when we trade - and we only trade productively when we trust each other.
In association with The Woodstock Bookshop
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
Please note the change of venue for this event. It was originally listed as Swann Gallery but has been moved to The Oxfordshire Museum.
Acts of Dishonour
Acclaimed Canadian filmmaker, author and journalist Nelofer Pazira will bring her latest film, Acts of Dishonour, to the festival for an intimate and exclusive UK screening, followed by a question and answer session.
Acts of Dishonour - written, directed by and starring Pazira - is a dramatic and revealing portrayal of the consequences for young women living in Afghanistan who disobey the rules of their community in order to live different lives. The f lm is inspired by similar real life experiences and succeeds the documentary she co-directed, Return to Kandahar, which follows her personal story of visiting Afghanistan in order to find a lost friend.
After the screening join Nelofer Pazira for a discussion over a glass of wine.
Food, Glorious Food: the New Tyranny?
Why are women obsessed with food, and with being thin? Why has eating become such a tyranny for many women? Do men count the number of chocolate biscuits they eat? Do they care? Do they have any inkling that women are unhealthily preoccupied with calories and slenderness?
Come and hear three of our most observant and witty women writers talk about weight, prejudice and the social embarrassment of being marked as different, simply because of avoirdupois: Arabella Weir (star of The Fast Show) whose latest book, The Real Me is Thin, gives a hilarious account of her eating history. Novelist Kathy Lette, whose witty (and by no means sexist) analysis of the male gender, Men: A User's Guide, was a huge success earlier this year. And TV impressionist Ronni Ancona, who will chair what promises to be an hilarious hour on a serious subject. Oh, and men are welcome too!
Running Time: 1hr
She Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth
In 1553, when Henry VIII's son, Edward VI, died, England was about to experience the ""monstrous regiment"" - the unnatural rule - of a woman. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edward's death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I, came tantalisingly close to securing her hold on the crown. And between the 12th and 15th centuries, three more women - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou - discovered, as queens consort and dowager, how much was possible if the presumptions of male rule were not confronted too explicitly.
Cambridge historian Helen Castor tells the fascinating story of how royal power came to lie in female hands for the first time under the Tudor Queens - and of the four women who came before them and who, whilst never reigning as monarchs, held great power nonetheless.
Running Time: 1hr
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SOLD OUT
Prices: £12
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Howard Jacobson; Chaired by Alistair Lack
Has there been a book which engrossed or moved you beyond all others? How would you describe such a work to the world at large?
Yasmin Alibhai Brown, award-winning journalist and author of The Settler’s Cookbook talks about Toni Morrison’s novellas Bluest Eye and Sula. And celebrated novelist Howard Jacobson, whose recent book The Finkler Question is on the Booker Prize long list, makes the case for Dickens’ Great Expectations.
Come and hear and challenge their views of these two writers.
Chaired by Alastair Lack formerly Head of English Programmes for the BBC World Service.
Third Writer to be announced.
Sponsored by The Oxford Times
Running Time: 1hr
Trick of the Mind
The award-winning crime writer and author of the massively successful Wire in the Blood - televised, starring Robson Green - Val McDermid talks about her latest tale of carnage and derangement, Trick of the Mind.
Set in the mysterious world of Oxford's exclusive colleges, it delves into the passions and love, family, greed and ambition that can lead a person to do strange things. A disgraced psychiatrist, Charlie Flint, finds herself drawn into a murder case when a package of press cuttings is inexplicably sent to her about a crime that has occurred in the grounds of her old Oxford college.
It's a wonderfully gripping novel - come and hear the author talk about her craft.
Running Time: 1hr
Guilt About the Past
A major new non-fiction collection from the author of the international best-seller The Reader.
Bernhard Schlink's hugely successful novel The Reader has been translated into 39 languages and was recently made into an Oscar-winning film starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet.
A judge and law professor, Schlink talks to the Independent's Literary Editor Boyd Tonkin about his new book Guilt About the Past, and the theme of complicity in his fictional writings. He discusses the long shadow of guilt that defines the German experience, and how the events of the past can affect a nation's future.
Based on the Weidenfeld lectures he delivered at Oxford University, Guilt About the Past has been hailed as one of the most important political, personal and philosophical treatises of recent times.
Running Time: 1hr
The Finkler Question
After his hugely successful appearance at the festival in 2008, the award-winning writer Howard Jacobson ("A real giant, a great, great writer" - Jonathan Safran Foer) returns to Woodstock to talk about his latest novel The Finkler Question - a scorching story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and the humanity of maturity.
The central characters are old school friends Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC Radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality. The two men have never quite lost touch with each other, or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. After a sweetly painful evening of reminiscences shared by the three men, Treslove is attacked. His whole sense of who and what he is slowly and ineluctably changes, and so the tale really begins.
Running Time: 1hr
Winston's Grandmama
The first authorized biography of Winston Churchill's grandmother, Frances Anne Emily Vane-Tempest-Stewart, who became the 7th Duchess of Marlborough. Sir Winston Churchill's parental grandmother (Randolph's mother) has been a background figure in many other people's biographies - sometimes dismissed as a Victorian martinet ""at the rustle of whose silk dress the household trembled"" -- but her own story as a member of this remarkable family has never been told until now.
Frances's family background is steeped in great historical names and occasions. She was the eldest daughter of the 3rd Marquess and Marchioness of Londonderry. She arrived at Blenheim in 1843 as the bride of John Winston, 7th Marquess of Blandford. Margaret Elizabeth Forster was granted exclusive access to the Blenheim archives while researching this book.
Running Time: 1hr
Philip Pullman in conversation with Martin Jennings, Chaired by Steven Parissien
The process of how a portrait is conceived and executed has always fascinated art lovers. The motivation behind the commission, the subject's aims and approach, the manner in which the artist responds to the subject, how the viewer judges the result - all these factors make the practice of creating and evaluating a portrait an endlessly intriguing exchange.
The Festival's first annual Compton Verney event features author Philip Pullman, described by the TLS as "one of the great authors in the British tradition of fantasy fiction," in conversation with sculptor Martin Jennings. Martin recently completed a sculptural portrait of Philip for the National Portrait Gallery, and these two celebrated figures will discuss how the finished work reflected their aspirations and objectives - and how their personal ambitions fit within the wider context of historical portraiture. The conversation will be chaired by the Director of Compton Verney Museum and Gallery, Dr Steven Parissien.
Running Time: 1hr
Libraries of the Future
What next for libraries in a digital world? Will the e-book replace bookshelves? Are we leaving a digital black hole for researchers of the future? Is Google a substitute for a good library? Are public libraries dead?
The British Library is one of our greatest national institutions - holding 14m books, 920,000 journals and newspaper titles, 58m patents and 3m sound recordings. Dame Lynne Brindley DBE, Chief Executive of the British Library, gives her views on libraries in the 21st century. In conversation with Stephen Glover, one of the founders of The Independent and now a celebrated media columnist. Come and hear a thought-provoking discussion on the rapidly changing role of libraries in an information age.
Introduced by Simon Kelner, Editor in Chief of The Independent.
Presented by The British Library
Running Time: 1hr
Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean
Philip Mansel's Levant is a book of cities. In conversation with David Gelber, he describes the role of Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut as windows on the world, escapes from nationality and tradition, centres of wealth, pleasure and freedom and, because of their mix of races and religions, challengers of stereotypes.
He brings to life their colourful, contradictory histories, from the beginning of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century to their decline in the mid 20th century, and describes how Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in cities until states reclaimed them for nationalistic purposes.
Running Time: 1hr
Mated on a Plate: The Joy of Flavours
Come and hear three leading cookery writers discuss the art of food combination: the subtle marriage of meat and herbs, fish and spices, fruit and savouries sometimes produces astonishing, transcendent new experiences on your taste buds. Chris Hirst is the author of Love Bites, a tender gastronomic saga of fruitful kitchen battles with Mrs H. Rose Prince writes regularly for the national press and is the author of The New English Table. And Niki Segnit's first book, The Flavour Thesaurus, an encyclopaedic study of what goes best with what, was published earlier this year to great acclaim. Their mouth-watering deliberations will be chaired by John Walsh, the Independent's assistant editor and resident glutton.
Running Time: 1hr
Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio lived the darkest and most dangerous life of any of the great painters. The worlds of Milan, Rome and Naples through which he moved are places of extremes - of cardinals and whores, prayers and violence, all of which Andrew Graham-Dixon describes vividly.
Caravaggio created the most dramatic paintings of his age, using ordinary men and women from his own desperate life as his models to embody his depictions of classic religious scenes. Graham-Dixon shows very clearly how Caravggio created their drama, their immediacy and humanity, and how completely he departed from the conventions of his time
Andrew Graham-Dixon is introduced by Professor Martin Kemp, one of the world's leading authorities on Leonardo.
Sponsored by Belgravia Gallery
Running Time: 1hr
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SOLD OUT
Prices: £10
This Party's Got to Stop
Rupert Thompson, one of our finest novelists, turns his superb story-telling skills on himself, giving us a funny, frank and moving memoir, considered by many to be the finest book of his career.
In conversation with The Independent's Literary Editor, Boyd Tonkin, it is an irreverent, but honest portrait of a family dealing - or not dealing - with loss and grief. It's also a healing journey, and an account of one family's haphazard attempt to know itself, following the death of their father and their return to the family home.
"Very funny. Rupert Thomson is such an attentive writer, and the quality of his attention brings the smallest incidents to life" - Hilary Mantel.
Running Time: 1hr
Peter Snow - To War with Wellington: From the Peninsula to Waterloo
7pm reception for 7.30pm. Black Tie
Dinner in the Presence of HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO
Preceded by a reception in the Duke of Marlborough's beautiful Italian Gardens, this year's Festival dinner is again staged in Sir John Vanbrugh’s Orangery. The dinner menu, based on dishes served in 1815, the year of Waterloo, has been researched by food historian and writer, Anne Menzies.
Our speaker is Peter Snow - one of Britain's most respected journalists and broadcasters. Peter was ITN's diplomatic defence correspondent. He presented BBC's Newsnight and was a legendary part of election nights' coverage for a generation.
This evening he will talk about his new book To War with Wellington. The Duke of Wellington's march from the coast of Portugal to victory at Waterloo in 1815 is one of the most spectacular military achievements in British Military history. Peter has drawn on first hand accounts by officers and men to describe life on and off the battlefield - the dreadful marches, the primitive state of medicine, the looting and drunken parties. Towering over all is Wellington, the Commander - but also the generous host, the huntsman and the ladies man.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
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SOLD OUT
Prices: £95
Marcus Berkmann and Angus Fraser, Chaired by Brian Viner
Join us in the wonderful setting of the King's Arms atrium for a breakfast of coffee, juice, smoked salmon with scrambled eggs or eggs Benedict. Hear Independent sports columnist Brian Viner talking about the forthcoming Ashes series with his illustrious guests: the journalist and bestselling author Marcus Berkmann (Ashes to Ashes) and the celebrated former England cricketer Angus Fraser, who played in three Ashes series.
This event will finish at 11.00am
Includes breakfast
Running Time: 1:30
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SOLD OUT
Prices: £22.50
Transformational Leadership - Lessons from Shakespeare's The Tempest
A rare chance to work with one of the leading international leadership development consultants in the world, Nicholas Janni.
Olivier Mythodrama (established by Richard Olivier - son of Laurence Olivier - and Nicholas Janni, Director of Strategic Partnership Programmes) have gained an international reputation training senior leaders in the private and public sectors using Shakespeare stories as case-studies.
Shakespeare's genius provides timeless insights into the human nature of transformational leadership, while the narrative drive of this great play reveals the vital ingredients of a successful change initiative.
You will work with "The Tempest" to gain timeless insights into the nature of personal and organisational transformation. The session will include some experiential exercises and time for discussion.
Book early as places are limited.
The event lasts for 3 hours.
Running Time: 3hrs
The Boy Who Bit Picasso
An Introduction for Children to the Art of Picasso
When Antony Penrose was three years old he was lucky enough to meet and become friends with Pablo Picasso, the greatest artist of the 20th century.
Tony - the son of the American photographer Lee Miller and the British surrealist artist Roland Penrose - recalls the many happy hours he spent with Picasso at their family farm in Sussex, and in Picasso's house and studio in France. His memories include pretend bullfights on the floor, playing in Picasso's messy studio, being given a drawing as a consolation for not being allowed to visit him -- and the time he sank his teeth into the Spanish maestro.
For children aged 4 upwards.
Sponsored by Belgravia Gallery
Running Time: 1hr
A Tasting of Fine Spanish Wines from Castillo Perelada of Catalonia
Wine making at the Castle of Perelada, North of Barcelona, has been documented since the Middle Ages. In 1923 the Castle and Estate were bought by Miguel Mateu Pla, whose father co-founded the famous Hispano Suiza motor car company. In recent decades the family have devoted themselves to the production of some of Europe's finest Estate wines and cava which have received numerous awards and great critical acclaim.
Charles Croft has worked in the UK and Spanish Wine Trade for over 25 years and has been associated with the wines from Castillo Perelada in the Empordà region of Catalonia since 1998.
The Castillo Perelada houses one of the finest art collections in Spain, and a great library of over 80,000 books.
Introduced by Anthony Rose, Wine Correspondent of The Independent.
The Reuters/Press Gazette launch of the Newspaper Hall of Fame listed Dame Ann Leslie as one of the 40 most influential journalists of our time. She has reported on the most dramatic events of the late 20th century, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to Nelson Mandela's walk to freedom. Steve McQueen, David Niven, James Mason and Salvador Dali were just some of the famous figures with whom she had close (sometimes too close) personal encounters. She regularly appears on television and radio shows, including Question Time and Any Questions.
Come and enjoy lunch at La Galleria in the heart of Woodstock, and hear Ann Leslie talk about her life and the people she's met in her long and rumbustious career.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
Gardening Women - Their Stories from 1600 to the Present
From Flora, Roman goddess of plants, to today's horticulturalists at Kew, women have always ruled in the garden. They have grown vegetables from their kitchens and herbs for their medicine cupboards. They've been the subject of footnotes in horticultural annals, for specimens they collected abroad. They taught young women about gardening 25 years before women's horticultural schools officially existed, and their influence on the style of our own gardens - frequently unacknowledged - survives to the present day.
Catherine Horwood has uncovered some extraordinary gardening women. We discover that Beatrix Potter was barred from submitting research to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew because she was a woman; and that the Bramley apple should be called the Brailsford apple because it was first planted by Mary Ann Brailsford who later sold her home to a Matthew Bramley. Catherine Horwood will talk about the circumstances - always unusual, sometimes bizarre - that led these women to the garden.
Sponsored by Floris London
Running Time: 1hr
My Father's Fortune
The award-winning author and playwright Michael Frayn talks about his father's life.
"An unknown place" -- this was what Frayn's children called the shadowy landscape of the past from which their family emerged. In My Father's Fortune, Frayn sets out to rediscover that lost land before all trace of it finally disappears beyond recall. As he tries to see it through the eyes of its inhabitants - his parents and some of the others who shaped his life - he comes to realise how little he himself ever knew or understood about them.
This is the story of his father, the quick-witted boy from a poor and struggling family, who overcame disadvantages and shouldered many burdens to make a go of his life; who found happiness, had it snatched away in an instant, and in the end, after many difficulties, perhaps found it again.
Michael Frayn's 15 plays range from the delirious farce Noises Off to the epic encounter between two quantum physicists in Copenhagen. His most recent novel Spies won the Whitbread Novel Award.
Running Time: 1hr
The Hemlock Cup
We think the way we do because Socrates thought the way he did. His aphorism, "The unexamined life is not worth living" may have originated 25 centuries ago, but it is a founding principle of modern life. Socrates lived and contributed to a city that nurtured key ingredients of contemporary civilisation - democracy, liberty, science, drama, rational thought - yet he wrote nothing in his lifetime and remains an enigmatic figure.
Television historian and bestselling author of Helen of Troy, Bettany Hughes, tells the story of Socrates's life, following his footsteps across Greece and Asia Minor and examining the new archaeological discoveries that shed light on his world. For 70 years he was a vigorous citizen of one of the greatest capitals on earth, but his beloved Athens turned on him and condemned him to death by poison. Socrates's pursuit of personal liberty is a vibrant story that Athens did not want us to hear, but which must be told. Nobody tells it better than Bettany Hughes.
Running Time: 1hr
Chasing the Devil - The Search for Africa's Fighting Spirits
For many years Sierra Leone and Liberia have been bedevilled by a uniquely brutal culture of violence from which many of Africa's cruellest contemporary cliches have sprung - child soldiers, prisoner mutilation, blood diamonds. With their wars now officially over, Tim Butcher set out on a journey across both countries. Just as he followed H M Stanley through the Congo in order to write his bestseller, Blood River, he now pursues a trail blazed by Graham Greene in 1935, and immortalised in the travel classic Journey without Maps.
As a journalist in Africa, Tim came to know both countries well, although the wars meant that trips to the jungle hinterland became far too risky. But he persevered, knowing that he had to explore the jungle to see if the devil of war had truly been chased away. What he encountered were other devils - masked figures guarding the spiritual secrets of jungle communities. His book is a record of a dramatic journey to one of the most fraught parts of the globe, at a unique moment in its history.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
Woodstock and the Royal Park
Woodstock and the Royal Park has been published to celebrate the 900th anniversary of a stone wall around a royal park. Today we know this Park as the Unesco World Heritage site of Blenheim and the adjacent town as Woodstock. The royal Manor House has long gone but the Park, although no longer royal, remains. Monarchs from Alfred to Anne owned and walked on this stage but many of their actions here are not widely known. Join John Banbury, one of three editors of the book, as he takes you back 900 years and reveals the story of Woodstock and Blenheim and the affect they had on ordinary people. It's a story with a cast of great names and tremendous events.
Running Time: 1hr
Yoluma and the King
The artist James Naughton, renowned for breathtaking, Turneresque landscapes which capture the essence of light, has now written and illustrated a children's book.
Yoluma and the King is a mysterious tale of a young boy's journey to overcome adversity and regain self-confidence. Written in the style of a fairy tale, its message is universal and optimistic: ultimately good overcomes evil, and light overcomes darkness. The sepia-coloured illustrations have the same timeless quality about them.
For children aged 8 years upwards
Presented by Iona House Gallery
Running Time: 1hr
Tastings from the The Settler's Cookbook
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown's family history is one of constant displacement and repeated relocation, in which feeling "settled" doesn’t come from putting down roots, but from taking up a pot and creating a feast that tastes and smells like home. The Settler's Cookbook follows her family story and brings it to life, describing the food they cooked together. Yasmin presents a cultural and culinary history of her people, full of recipes and stories passed on and shared around, which continue to feed and inspire friends and relatives to this day. Yasmin will cook some of her family recipes for you to taste, and will tell of the memories each dish evokes.
Running Time: 1hr
The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe
Award-winning novelist Andrew O'Hagan discusses his work with Sarah Crompton, Arts Editor of the Daily Telegraph and reads from his new book, The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog.
Maf the dog was Marilyn Monroe's constant companion for the last two years of her life. His licence and photographs were sold at auction along with Marilyn's other personal effects. He was much more than a canine pal, however: he was also a scholar, witnessing the rise of America's new liberalism, civil rights, the space race and the New York critics.
The story of Maf is a hilarious and highly original peek into the life of a complex canine hero. Through his eyes, you'll be given unique insights into the life of Monroe herself, and into one of the most extraordinary periods of the twentieth century.
Running Time: 1hr
David Aaronovitch, Kevin Maguire and Paul Staines, Chaired by Ann Leslie
In an era of 24-hour news and the internet, have conspiracy theorists and online gossips begun to distort the news agenda? Has healthy scepticism now turned into a poisoned cynicism which damages the body politic?
Discussing this issue are the Times columnist David Aaronovitch, author of Voodoo Histories: the Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History; the highly influential Paul Staines whose political blog "Guido Fawkes" is much feared by politicians; Kevin Maguire, Associate Editor (Politics) of the Daily Mirror, who also writes the Village Voice column on "high politics and low life in Westminster" for the New Statesman, and is co-author of Great Parliamentary Scandals.
The award-winning foreign correspondent and political commentator Dame Ann Leslie will chair the discussion.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
The Jumping Rocks
Mark Ryder will talk about The Jumping Rocks, a novel he wrote from his screenplay of the same name, which he plans to shoot in Italy later this year. It's the story of an Englishman and his family, who arrive to spend the summer with some friends on the Italian Riviera. But the idyllic surroundings mask terrible secrets. A nightmare slowly ensues. Tragic events peel back the thin veneer of normality in two English families, to reveal their fragile grasp on reality.
Ryder will discuss the strange journey the book took, and his battle to get the film made. It takes in Rome, Portofino, London - and its origins, when he was working as a composer in Los Angeles.
Sponsored by Harriet’s Tea Rooms
Running Time: 1hr
The Hare with Amber Eyes.
In association with The Woodstock Bookshop
Artist Edmund de Waal travelled the world, standing in the great buildings his forebears once inhabited, in order to discover the story of a unique collection of wooden and ivory carvings - the netsuke. He first encountered them in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie: 264 pieces, depicting animals, plants and people, none of them larger than a matchbox. Later, when he inherited the collection, he discovered it unlocked a fascinating story.
Bought by Charles Ephrussi as a wedding present for his cousin in Vienna, it remained banished to the bride's dressing-room. But during the Second World War, the collection was smuggled out of his cousin's Viennese palace (then occupied by Hitler's theorist on the "Jewish Question,") one piece at a time, in the pocket of a loyal maid.
Edmund de Waal will tell the story of this unique collection which passed from hand to hand - and which, in an ironic twist of fate, found its way home to Japan.
Sponsored by Belgravia Gallery
Running Time: 1hr
Hugh Trevor-Roper, and the Feud with Evelyn Waugh
Clever, witty and sophisticated, Hugh Trevor-Roper was the most brilliant historian of his generation. Until his downfall, he seemed to have everything: wealth and connections, a chair at Oxford, an aristocratic wife, and, eventually, a title of his own.
He developed a lucid prose style which he used to deadly effect. He was notorious for his acerbic attacks on other historians. But ultimately he destroyed his own reputation with a catastrophic error when he authenticated the forged “Hitler Diaries”.
Award-wining biographer Adam Sisman reveals that there was much more to Trevor-Roper's career than the Diaries fiasco that became his epitaph. From wartime code-breaking to grilling Nazis when the trail was still fresh in 1945, to his snobbery, his malice and his formidable post-war feud with Evelyn Waugh.
Sponsored by The Oxford Times
Running Time: 1hr
My Last Duchess
Daisy Goodwin is one of the nation's greatest promoters of poetry through her books and television series. In conversation with Simon Kelner, Editor in Chief of The Independent, she launches her debut novel My Last Duchess - a story full of exquisite period details and a phalanx of historical characters.
The heroine, American heiress Cora Cash, has grown up in a world in which money unlocks every door, yet her fortune cannot buy her the one thing she craves - the freedom to choose her own destiny. Cora's mother has her heart set on a title for her daughter. Impoverished English blue-bloods are queuing up for introductions to her - but Cora loses her heart to a man she barely knows.
Running Time: 1hr
Did Labour's Demise result in a Hung Parliament?
"For the first time in 36 years, a general election resulted in no overall majority and a battle to see which leader could form a government. Was the demise of Labour inevitable? Did Gordon Brown lose an election that Labour might have won had he departed sooner? Was a Lib-Lab coalition ever thought to be a likelihood? How effective is the Lib-Con coalition after five months, and will it hold together for five years? What are the implications for Britain?
These questions will be discussed by Polly Toynbee, the Guardian columnist and writer (The Verdict; Did Labour Change Britain?), Steve Richards, TV presenter and chief political columnist for The Independent (Whatever it Takes; The Inside Story of GB and New Labour), and Peter Hennessy, English historian of government, award winning author and journalist. Chaired by Mary Ann Sieghart
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
Must You Go?
"Must You Go?" were the first words Harold Pinter said to Antonia Fraser, as she prepared to leave a dinner party one night in 1975. She didn't go. It was the beginning of one of the great love affairs, that ended 34 years later with Pinter's death in 2009. This book is based partly on Antonia Fraser's diaries which she has kept since October 1968; she began them because she suffered from withdrawal symptoms after finishing her first historical biography, Mary Queen of Scots.
Lady Antonia talks to Geordie Greig, Editor of the London Evening Standard, about her life with Pinter, revealing an insightful testimony to modern literature’s most celebrated marriage, between the greatest playwright of the age and a beautiful and famous, prize-winning biographer.
Running Time: 1hr
Courtiers - The Secret History of Kensington Palace
"In the 18th century, talented and ambitious people flocked to Kensington Palace in search of power and prestige, only to find it was a gilded cage and a bloody battlefield.
Lucy Worsley is Chief Curator of the Historic Royal Palaces. She presents an eye-opening group portrait of the royal servants who inhabited Kensington Palace during the early 18th century: they include the feral "Wild Boy," the hermit of the royal gardens and the Bedchamber Woman. Her book throws new light on the dramatic life of George II and Queen Caroline - a lover murdered, snatched babies, horrific illnesses and tearful deathbed reconciliations - while satisfying our greedy curiosity about backstairs life in the Hanoverian court.
Running Time: 1hr
Ancient Worlds - The Search of the Origins of Human Civilization
Richard Miles talks about his forthcoming book which accompanies a BBC2 series on Ancient Worlds, to be aired during the autumn. In his quest for the origins of our civilization, he recreates the ancient cities of the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Nile Delta: cities that defined culture, religion and economic success and were humanity's greatest invention, yet also had a cruel edge to them. And building systems that provided backbreaking hardship and amazing results.
Richard will also discuss his most recently published book, Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilisation, a spectacular account of the generations-long battle for supremacy between Carthage and Rome.
Running Time: 1hr
Last Bus to Woodstock - A Tribute to Colin Dexter at 80
Colin Dexter will be 80 in September and 2010 also marks the 35th anniversary of the publication of his first Inspector Morse novel, Last Bus to Woodstock.
To mark these landmarks, the Festival is organising a tribute to Colin. On the morning of Sunday 19 September, a special Stagecoach bus will draw up to the Randolph Hotel in Oxford - setting for so many Morse encounters - to collect Colin, his family and friends for the journey to Woodstock and Blenheim Palace. There, in the Orangery, Colin will talk about his life, career and writing.
Sponsored by The Oxford Times with The Macdonald Randolph Hotel and Stagecoach
Running Time: 1hr
The Secret State: Preparing for the Worst 1945 - 2010
Peter Hennessy's new edition of his landmark book The Secret State completely revises his original picture of the Soviet threat, as it was successively presented to ministers from the last days of the Second World War right up to the 1970s.
He is able to do this thanks to extraordinary new material from the most secret of Whitehall's Cold War files, including the War Book for World War II, and details of the transition to war exercises that tested it.
Peter Hennessy, one of our most distinguished historians, maps out the size and shape of the Cold War state built in response to that threat, traces the arguments used to justify the British nuclear capability, and finds civil defence bunkers deep under the Cotswolds to shelter Britain's elite rulers from attack. He brings us up to date by explaining the work of the Joint Intelligence Committee and the protective "counter-terror" state that was formed in response to the threats presented by radical Islamic terrorists after September 11, 2001.
Introduced by Ivan Fallon, former Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times and a noted biographer.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
Crown and Country: Our History through the Monarchy
No historian has brought the Tudors to vivid, passionate life as briliantly as David Starkey, in his bestselling books and popular television shows.
His new book, Crown and Country, synthesises and updates two earlier books to provide an outstanding overview of the British monarchy from the retreat of the Romans to the rise of the Windsors.
Starkey charts the history of British royalty through the Wars of the Roses, the confusion of the Civil War and the fall of Charles I, the Restoration, the Georgians and Hanoverians to the time when British royalty finally came face to face with the modern world.
Come and listen to this great historian sweeping through the centuries with his customary wit, gusto and (said the Daily Telegraph) quasi-Pontifical assurance.
Running Time: 1hr
I Think I Love You
I Think I Love You asks: what happens when the man you thought you loved turns out to be someone else entirely?
The award-winning journalist and best-selling novelist Allison Pearson, whose first novel I Don't Know How She Does It, sold more than 3.5m copies worldwide, now takes her readers back to the 1970s and the world of teenagers Petra and Sharon, both hopelessly in love with David Cassidy. A magazine called The Essential David Cassidy is the girls' bible but, unbeknown, to them David's personal letters are written by someone else. Twenty-four years later, Petra discovers an old letter which forces her to confront her past.
In conversation with Christina Patterson, writer and columnist for The Independent.
Running Time: 1hr
Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940-45
The pre-eminent military historian Max Hastings presents Winston Churchill as he has never been seen before, by looking at him from the outside in, through the eyes of British soldiers, civilians and newspapers - and also through the eyes of Russians and Americans. Hastings paints a wonderfully vivid image of Churchill in both triumph and tragedy, and points just how low his popularity fell in 1942, amid an unbroken succession of battlefield defeats.
Finest Years is an intimate and affectionate portrait of Churchill as Britain's saviour, but it is also an unsparing examination of the wartime nation that he led.
Introduced by Ivan Fallon, former Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times and a noted biographer.
Supported by Ian and Carol Sellars
Running Time: 1hr
Italy's Private Gardens: An Inside View
Helena Attlee has been visiting Italian gardens, delving into their history and writing about them for two decades.
Her travels are the inspiration for Italy's Private Gardens, a book built around conversations with people intimately associated with some of Italy's most intriguing private gardens situated in Piedmont, the Veneto, Tuscany, Lazio, Umbria and Sicily.
Come and hear about the owners, the gardeners and the garden designers who make these gardens what they are. In conversation with Victoria Summerley, Executive Weekend Editor of the Independent, she will describe some of the extraordinary experiences that she has had over the years.
Illustrated with wonderful photographs by her award winning partner Alex Ramsay.
Presented by the University of Worcester
Running Time: 1hr
6.30pm reception, 7pm talk followed by dinner. Business Suits
Sir Max Hastings is one of Britain's most distinguished journalists and war correspondents - reporting from more than 60 countries and 11 conflicts for BBC Television and the London Evening Standard. He was the first journalist to enter Port Stanley during the Falklands War.
Ten years as Editor of the Daily Telegraph and 5 years as Editor of the Evening Standard have been followed by nearly a decade as a columnist and commentator. Sir Max has written over 20 books on history and military campaigns.
Sponsored by Liaison
Tickets Oxford is managed by Oxford Playhouse.
