First class tickets to everywhere!
September 24 2021Somerset was long considered the heart of England. After all, it’s easy to feel at home here. Many of our speakers do and are: Dr Lucy Pollock who urges us actually to talk about getting older; Lucy Jago who set her first YA book at Montacute House and has now written about a scandal at the court of James I; and our very own wildlife expert Stephen Moss who has added the lifecycle of The Swan, that iconic local symbol, to his series on Britain’s favourite birds. Even Isy Suttie discovered Somerset in her DNA: her grandma and family were evacuated during WW2 which meant Isy’s mother found herself being born in Castle Cary!
But in fact, the appeal of our Festival stretches far beyond county boundaries. After our international success last year, we will again be streaming events to audiences all over the globe. And, although all our eminent speakers are scheduled to appear live on the Cedars Hall stage (as they used to in the good old days!), the variety of topics being discussed will take you deep into exciting new territory. Places you will discover from the comfort of Wells include America, Argentina, Russia and China; Ancient Greece, Oxford, the former British Empire; the Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas; the Atlantic Ocean and the Adriatic. But you could also find yourself in less tangible, more unfamiliar areas, discovering ideas you have never considered before: whiteness, the hope of a New Age, the NHS translated into poetry, the hidden brilliance of a grim old bag, the unreliability of a memory, trafficking, the roasting of sweets, being female, being odd…
The full scope of this year’s festival can be found here. Spend some time exploring the various avenues along which you can travel from a comfortable seat in the Cedars Hall auditorium. Or even, via live-streaming, from your very own armchair! Some events are selling out, so don’t linger too long…
