Comedy night at Swindon Festival of Literature – the evening that gives your brain cells a chance to recover after events featuring deep thinkers and political heavyweights.
©Calyx Vince Cable at the Swindon Festival of Literature
There are two kinds of politicians: the quiet, steady-hand-on-the-rudder type, and the charismatic ones, who can seem appealing, but whose run-away mouths can often get them into trouble.
Serious and deliberate in his delivery, Vince Cable – who certainly falls into the former camp – nonetheless allows himself a joke at the expense of the latter.
“I see I am one of two speakers with a political background,” he tells the Swindon Festival of Literature tonight (Tuesday). “At least I don’t need to be looking around the audience to see where the Mossad people are.”
Ken Livingstone will be appearing next Tuesday.
On a night when the ‘Foxes’ of Leicester City won the Premier League at the expense of the cockerel crested Spurs, debating the fox and his many guises seemed appropriate, especially as the event took place at Lower Shaw Farm.
Chickens were conspicuous by their absence, perhaps taking the hint from the signage chalked across their usual pecking ground.
So, Fantastic Mr. Fox or ginger vermin?
Lucy Jones explores every side of this complex creature in her book Foxes Unearthed – A story of love and loathing in modern Britain.
Speaking in a former cowshed on an award-winning urban farm, Jones was in the perfect place to expand on the countryside vs. city paradox which sees foxes fed at back-doors by ‘townies’ but shot or hunted in the countryside.
Jones made it clear that Mr. Fox is both hero and the villain, and has been so since he slunk into mankind’s chicken cave centuries ago.
A keen audience of first-night festival-goers heard the wildly differing points of view of the hunting fraternity, angry saboteurs, curly haired pomp-rock guitarists and chicken-less farmers. Continue reading
Literature lovers of Swindon beware – the book-readers of Birmingham are after your Festival tickets.
Swindon’s 23rd annual Festival of Literature was launched in the courtyard of Swindon Library yesterday (Thursday) – the day that tickets went on sale.
And by 8.30am, revealed Festival organiser Matt Holland, the box office had already received ticket enquiries – some from as far afield as the Midlands and Home Counties. “Don’t be beaten by people from Birmingham and Basingstoke in getting tickets,” was his dire warning. Continue reading
All good things must come to an end, and this good thing ended with a bunch of crescendos, and some climaxes courtesy of poet Jo Bell.
Swindon Festival of Literature is about authors, and books, and thoughts, but the Festival Finale traditionally throws music and poetry into the mix, allowing the festival faithful a chance to kick back, rest weary brain cells, and wallow in entertainment. Continue reading
Mark O’Donnell in conversation with Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson has had a bad week. Labour lost the election, his beloved Queen’s Park Rangers were relegated, and he discovered that his new next door neighbour in the Houses of Parliament offices is Alex Salmond.
A couple of nights ago we had our first comedy / thinky mash-up with Helen Lederer and Peter Tatchell. And last night, we enjoyed an equally unlikely billing – a double-header with philosopher A.C. Grayling and impressionist Rory Bremner. Continue reading
As double bills go, it was an unusual one. Comedienne and actress Helen Lederer is the go-to gal if you want a dotty posh woman in your TV show or film. Human rights champion Peter Tatchell is no less a firebrand than he was when he first popped onto our radar as a gay rights activist in the 1980s.
The decision of the judges was final. The decision of the referees were even more final. We gave orgasmistically abandoned appreciation. Yes, it was the 19th Swindon Slam!, a poetic performance of epic proportions. Continue reading
Henry Marsh, eminent neurosurgeon and author of Do No Harm had a rather unorthodox entry into his profession. Yes he went to Oxford University so his brains were never in any doubt but, as a self-confessed ‘self-dramatising teenager’, he chucked it all in for love, found himself a job as a hospital porter and wrote bad poetry. Continue reading
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