Our 8th Festival has ended but the main event was, we all hope, our best festival ever. It combined live events on the Maltings Theatre, bringing the Port Laureate Simon Armitage to the last town in England, with our ever-popular writing workshops. In Zoom sessions we heard a passionate appeal for change from Gordon Brown, learned the history of Tudor England and India, discussed new fiction, dogs, the Army, and politicians; and we heard poetry read aloud. Joseph Coelho ran poetry workshops for the town’s schools as the Festival’s outreach to our community. We are hugely grateful to our speakers and to the global audience who watched, and for the support of our Patrons and sponsors.

Most of the sessions were recorded and are free to view on our YouTube channel (with 2020 events too) in case you missed them first time or are new to the Festival. All our Zoom events were free to view and as this is a volunteer-run event, donations are always welcome.

The 9th Festival will start on 13th October 2022: the format is hard to predict but we hope to bring you the same sparkling combination of words – written, spoken and performed: please join us then.

Michael Gallico
Steering Group Chair