Friday 25 April 2pm   Sarah Wise discusses with Geoffrey White the notorious but now forgotten 1913 Mental Deficiency Act, and some of the heartrending stories of the approximately 50,000 innocent people locked away by ‘liberal’England in the early twentieth century. Their crimes? Being different, poor and unyielding. 

3.30pm The Fire & The Freedom a performance of the taped life of a victim of the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. NB - A separate ticket is required for this second event

Friday 25 April 3.30pm   A MONOLOGUE based on his own tapes telling the story of how as a teenager the late stage and screen actor Toke Townley – Sam Pearson in ITV’s Emmerdale Farm – became a victim of the notorious 1913 Mental Deficiency Act (see 2pm Event)

Performed by Toke’s nephew Charlie Bennett scripted & directed by Vanessa Rigg. 

Friday 26 April 12 Noon  Ulrika Maude’s presentation on how witnessing so much illness first hand profoundly shaped Beckett’s writing and his representation of language and gave an impetus to the formal innovations he made in poetry, prose and drama as can be seen in the two performances of Waiting for Godot 25/26th

Friday 25 & Saturday 26 April  'The most important English-language play of the 20th century.’

The Festival’s 'In House' professional production to mark the 70th anniversary of the first UK performance of Samuel Beckett’s iconic play which, directed by Peter Hall, opened on August 3rd 1955 at the Arts Theatre, London.                                             Director - Christian Durham   Cast - Estragon - Paul Ansdell,  Vladimir - Chris Jury, Lucky - Sam Parks, Pozzo - David Acton,  The Boy - Sebastian  Makaritis: Casting Director - Edward Bennett                           

Saturday 3 May 5.30pm  Master of Wine, David Gleave in conversation about his wine tales from the heart of Italy with Charlie Bennett, followed by a tutored tasting of iconic Tuscan wines, its Chianti and the Super Tuscan rebel-wines that have captured the hearts, palates and pockets of any wine lover who sipped them.

Sunday 4 May 2.30pm  John Suchet, former ITN war correspondent and news anchor, presents his deeply moving latest work on Beethoven – part biography, part memoir, part travelogue. After the interval Arthur Kokerai performs Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas  in B flat major op.22 and in F minor, ‘Appassionata’, op.57

Monday 5 May 10.30am   *2024 WINNER OF THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING* Matthew Longo’s presentation of his story of a moment when the tide of history turned. All would flow – the fall of the Berlin Wall – from those dramatic hours when in August 1989, a group of Hungarian activists did the unthinkable: they entered the forbidden militarised zone of the Iron Curtain - and held a picnic.

Monday 5 May 12 noon  Vernon Bogdanor discusses with Alan Rusbridger  the political careers of three politicians from the Left – Aneurin Bevan, Roy Jenkins, and Tony Benn – and three from the Right – Enoch Powell, Keith Joseph, and Nigel Farage. Each challenged the consensus of their day and remain strikingly relevant. 

Monday 5 May 2pm  Science is helping us begin to understand the workings of our brain and its genes, and the nature of human consciousness. Modern genetics goes further, facilitating improved manipulation of animals’ genes; soon we may modify the human brain in attempts to enhance certain inherited characteristics which seem desirable. Given that virtually all species are defined by their genes, we could speed up evolution. Scientists talk of healthy humans or people with greater strength or intelligence. But when we do eventually succeed in making superhumans, what then the value of human life?  

Monday 5 May 3.30pm  Michael Rosenthal chairs a discussion on our health service with Rachel Clarke, a physician specialising in end of life care and Iona Heath a retired inner city GP and past president of UK Royal College of Practitioners. Iona read John Berger’s A Fortunate Man when she was a hopeful medical student, and is convinced that reading Berger made her a better GP. Rachel shares her latest, profoundly moving, best selling work and September 2024 BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week: the heart of fatally injured 9 year old Keira saves the life of critically ill Max.

Monday 5 May 5pm  Sue Prideaux’s vital re-examination of the trailblazing and controversial artist Paul Gauguin – and the first full biography in over thirty years, illuminating the people, places and ideas that shaped Gaugin’s vision from his privileged upbringing in Peru to the galvanising Paris art scene; encounters with Vincent van Gogh and August Strindberg; and the ceaseless draw of French Polynesia.

Monday 5 May 6.30pm  Helen Castor presents the Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV: A king who was a tyrant replaced by a king who was a usurper; cousins whose rivalry brought their nation to the brink of disintegration - and back again.

Monday 5 May 8pm  Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 2012 until 2022, and Harriet Walter one of Britain’s most esteemed actors, discuss their books and life in the theatre with eminent theatre critic Michael Billington

Tuesday 6 May 10am  Sarah P. Corbett explains ‘How To’ create ethical craftivism projects and just as importantly ‘Why To’ so that you can fulfil the potential of your campaign with both a strong strategy and mindful process.

Tuesday 6 May 12 noon   After a two course lunch, Sonia Purnell discusses with Caroline Stanford the astonishing life of seduction, power and intrigue of Winston Churchill’s daughter-in-law, Pamela Churchill Harriman, unveiling for the first time the full, spectacular story of how Pamela left an indelible mark on the world today.

Tuesday 6 May 5pm  Adrian Tinniswood and Landmark Trust Historian Caroline Stanford explore how, Before the Great War, for the privileged few, life in the country house was the best life of all in a world where privilege and hedonism went hand-in-hand with duty and honour.            

Tuesday 6 May 7pm  Meg Sanders chairs this discussion between Michèle Roberts, whose latest non-fiction work explores the work of the groundbreaking modernist writer Colette; Sue Roe, whose captivating non fiction book, spanning seven decades, reveals the charisma and personality of Picasso’s six remarkable partners; and Louisa Treger with her fictionalised account of the life of photographer Dora Maar, Pablo Picasso’s ‘The Weeping Woman’

Wednesday 7 May 10am  Agnes Arnold-Forster’s presentation exploring the evolution of nostalgia: a way we communicate a desire for the past, dissatisfaction with the present and our vision for the future. An illness in 17c Switzerland, today Nostalgia is co-opted by advertising agencies to sell us goods, and has been chillingly deployed in politics from the cold war to Trumpism.

Wednesday 7 May 11.30am  Ben Masters talks to Caroline Sanderson about how he and his father shared passions, lessons and regrets as they ran out of time. Ben became his dying father’s connection to the outdoors, reporting back on his father’s beloved butterflies: flitting from Nabokov; Prince and Joni Mitchell; Virginia Woolf, Angela Carter and The Sopranos; and the voices of John Clare and Luther Vandross,

Wednesday 7 May 2pm  THE SECRET WORLD OF ROBERT CECIL 

‘Forget 007 – England’s wildest spies were the Elizabethans’ The Telegraph  Stephen Alford presents the secret world of Robert Cecil, the ‘smoothfac’d dwarf’ and  ultimate Tudor spymaster whose espionage network and good luck conspired to confound invasion and to create a new ‘British’ monarchy which has endured to the present day.    

Wednesday 7 May 3.30pm  THE WORLD’S OLDEST RAILWAY 

Simon Bradley presents his exhilarating journey through two centuries of British Railway History: from iconic locomotives and dining saloons to collecting dogs, and from wartime salvage efforts to the influential Rail Alphabet. 

Wednesday 7 May 7pm  SILENT CINEMA  WITH LIVE PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT! 

Lisa Stein Haven discusses the early years of Keaton’s life and career from the Vaudeville Stage to Comique Films. After the interval Stephen Horne, a house musician at London's BFI Southbank, accompanies a screening of the 1926 masterpiece The General

Thursday 8 May 10am  BRINGING A FORGOTTEN HERO BACK TO LIFE                                                                                                                                     Clare Mulley presents the untold story of fearless WW2 Resistance Fighter Elżbieta Zawacka: the only woman to reach London from Warsaw as an emissary of the WW2 Polish Home Army command  Elżbieta was parachuted back into Nazi-occupied Poland to take a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and liberation of Poland.

Thursday 8 May 11.30am  We regret that for reasons beyond our control, Petroc has had to withdraw from this event. He is very sorry he is not able to be with us. PLEASE SEE REPLACEMENT EVENT BELOW

Thursday 8 May 11.30am  CHOOSING SIDES IN THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR                                                                                                                                   Minoo Dinshaw discusses with Caroline Stanford how In the early 17th century many pivotal friendships were forged at the Inns of Court, London's intellectual, literary and social heart. Few friendships were closer than that of Bulstrode Whitelocke and Edward (Ned) Hyde. Lively characters, industrious, well-connected, principled and optimistic, but they ended up on opposite sides during the Civil War.

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Thursday 8  May 2pm  Kit de Waal, author of MY NAME IS LEON **A TIMES and INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER** discusses  with Meg Sanders her latest hot off the press novel: A story about the meaning of kindness, and the love that can steal into our lives – in spite of the best laid plans.

Thursday 8 May 3.30pm  ‘OUR FINEST NATURE AND FARMING WRITER ’ Times Literary Supplement

John Lewis-Stempel presents his tapestry of twelve distinctive habitats that together make up the iconic landscapes that define England’s rich diversity of flora and fauna.

Thursday 8 May 7pm  BILLIE HOLLIDAY

Paul Alexander Zooms in from New York to discuss his unconventional portrait of arguably America’s most eminent jazz singer Billie Holiday revealing a powerful woman who overcame her flaws to triumph as a vital figure of American popular music. After the interval - Live jazz from the Nik Payton Sextet

Friday 9 May 10am  A PRIEST’S MEMOIR

Brian Mountford discusses with Craig Bishop his colourful memoir, from 1950’s childhood to the COVID crisis, and describes his life as a priest, which has spanned a period of immense social change and seen the secularisation of Britain to the point where 52% of the population say they have ‘no religion

Friday 9  May 12 noon   Tim Coulson covers physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, the emergence of life, evolution, consciousness and the rise of humankind to take us from the beginning of everything to the staggering complexity of the modern human mind.

Friday 9  May 2pm  OUR OPEN MIC (without a mic): Fiona Sampson reads from her latest internationally award winning collection that ends with a long, eponymous poem, which moves fluidly and brilliantly through different forms of memory. Members of the audience who would like to read one of their own poems  please email vicky@campdenliteraturefestival.co.uk                            

Friday 9  May 5pm  #1 BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER                                                                         Kate Summerscale (‘Shatters our preconceptions of a classic crime’ Val McDermid) discusses with Geoffrey White how, in March 1953, London police discovered the bodies of three young women hidden in a wall at 10 Rillington Place, a dingy rowhouse in Notting Hill, another body beneath the floorboards, and an array of human bones in the garden. Tim Evans had been hanged for a double murder at 10 Rillington Place three years before. Did the police get the wrong man?

Friday 9  May 6.30pm  A PAGE TURNING MASTERCLASS IN ESPIONAGE THRILLER FICTION from the heir to John le Carré

Henry Porter in conversation with Sue Cook: the last MI5 job for Henry’s protagonist Slim Parsons ended with a life-and-death struggle on a private jet. Now she is to infiltrate a news website staffed by a group descended from wartime codebreakers operating from an unassuming office block near Bletchley Park. Why is it causing alarm in the highest circles?

Friday 9 May 8pm  THE MILLION COPY #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF HOW TO KILL YOUR FAMILY IS BACK WITH THE NEW BOOK OF THE MOMENT

Bella Mackie and Greg James discuss writing. Bella’s latest has 'a gloriously repugnant cast– everyone here, apart from her rather sweet TikTok sleuth, is dreadful, but in a pleasurably awful way…A dark, funny story of a very dysfunctional family’ The Observer. Greg's latest, The Twits Next Door, is a wickedly funny, prank-filled adventure inspired by the characters of Roald Dahl

Saturday 10 May 10.30am  THE STORY OF ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST CONSEQUENTIAL INVESTORS & COMPULSIVE RISK TAKERS

Lionel Barber discusses with Alan Rusbridger his biography of Masayoshi Son, an ethnic Korean in Japan, who overcame adversity and discrimination to become Japan’s best known business man and empire builder. Son has made and lost several fortunes, investing or controlling assets worth $1 trillion in the past two decades through his media-tech giant, SoftBank but remains an illusive and intensely private figure. 

Saturday 10 May 12 noon  HAVE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY GOT THE STORY OF THE WEST WRONG?

Sameer Rahim chairs a conversation between Josephine Quinn & Paul Richardson: Was the West built on the ideas and values of Ancient Greece and Rome or is the story of the West much bigger? Is it contact and connections – the mingling of societies – or solitary civilisation that drive historical change? Is how we see the world represented with Europe at the centre how the world really is? Are border walls the solution to migration? Is Russia predestined to threaten its neighbours?

Saturday 10 May 2pm  A conversation between Corinne Fowler &  Simon Lister: The brilliant all-rounder Frank Worrell had to wait until 1960 to become the first permanent Black captain of the West Indies cricket team and led his men into an unforgettable series against Australia and England. Simon’s story of Frank Worrell’s life goes hand in hand with Corinne’s ten country walks through Colonial Britain accompanied by among others Sathnam Sanghera, and including walks through Jura and Islay, the Lake District, East Lancashire, Norfolk, Hampshire, Dorset, the Whitehaven Coast, Cornwall and ‘An Indian Walk’ in the Cotswolds

Saturday 10 May 3.30pm  Sayeeda Warsi in discussion with Alan Rusbridger: Three grandfathers killed on the streets of England in three separate incidents by three different men. Each targeted simply for being Muslim – each attack a consequence of the insidious rise in Islamophobia in Britain. Fed by a network of media outlets, think tanks, commentators, and even the entertainment industry, Islamophobia not only passes “the dinner table test” but is also Britain’s bigotry blind spot.

Saturday 10 May 5pm  SUNDAY TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE LOST RAINFORESTS OF BRITAIN IS BACK

Guy Shrubsole shares with Lindsay Mackie his journeys all over Britain to expose the damage done to our land, and meet the communities fighting back: the river guardians, small farmers and trespassing activists restoring our lost wildlife. Full of rage and hope, Guy’s is a bold vision for our nation’s wild places, and how we can treat them with the awe and attention they deserve.

Saturday 10 May 6.30pm  That Rome lives more vividly in people's imagination than any other ancient empire owes an inordinate amount to Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, and now Tom Holland brings us even closer in a new, spellbinding translation: The Lives of the Caesars is an astonishing, immersive experience of a time and culture at once familiar and utterly alien to our own. Placing each Caesar in the context of the generations that had gone before, and connecting personality with policy, Suetonius injected flesh and blood into their stories, which continue to inform how we understand the drama of power today. 

Sunday 11 May 2pm  The Authors are one of the oldest wandering cricket teams. Founded in 1891, the side played an annual match against the Actors at Lord’s, as well as the Artists and Publishers. Arthur Conan Doyle usually captained and PG Wodehouse and AA Milne were regulars.  FREE EVENT-ALL WELCOME