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Brighton Festival

May 2, 2009 – May 24, 2009

29 New Road (Ticket Office)
Brighton, East Sussex, BN1 1UG
United Kingdom

01273 709709; ticketsbrightondome.org

Web site: http://www.brightonfestival.org/

Events: http://www.brightonfestival.org/…

Description: Brighton Festival is the largest event of its kind in England. Now in its fifth decade, it has become one of the major milestones in the cultural calendar, bringing an international mix of exclusive events, world and UK premieres, special one-off commissions and endless hours of entertainment to the city by the sea.
Each year it unveils a sensational programme of theatre, dance, music, books & debate, children's and family shows and outdoor spectacle.

Added by: DeadGoodBooks.  Contacted: Not contacted.  Venue ID: 6903

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Past events

City Books Brunch (May 3 at 11:00am)
Alison Weir discusses The Lady Elizabeth: A Novel.
£17.50
Join acclaimed historian and writer Alison Weir and a surprise guest for City Books' annual literary brunch. Alison Weir is perhaps best known as a best-selling biographer, with major works on Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen Isabella, Mary Queen of Scots and Katherine Swynford. She is also an accomplished ... (more)historical novelist, and in this special celebration of good food and great books, Alison turns her attention to her latest novel The Lady Elizabeth, the story of Elizabeth I before she became queen.
Event location: The Old Market
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
John Gray (May 3 at 7:30pm)
John Gray discusses Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia.
£7.50. During the last century global politics was shaped by science-based utopian projects, with genocidal consequences. Today, the war in Iraq has promised a new era of democracy yet produced a blood-soaked anarchy and emerging theocracy. Black Mass, John Gray's powerful and frightening new book, ... (more)argues that the death of utopia does not mean peace.Instead it portends the return of fundamentalist and apocalyptic religion. Join our 'most important living philosopher' (Will Self) for a stimulating enquiry into the religious roots of today's global conflicts.
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
The Brighton Moment (May 5 at 7:30pm)
Annabel Giles, The Illustrated Brighton Moment.; Peter James.; Jeff Noon.; Julie Burchill.
TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM KOMEDIA ON 01273 647100
£7.50
approx 180 mins
The brightest and glitteriest of the city's literati take over the Komedia Upstairs for a one night cabaret of bite-sized Brighton moments hosted by writer, actress and broadcaster Annabel Giles. Catch live contributions from Peter ... (more)James, Jeff Noon, Julie Burchill, Dan Raven, Sam O'Reilly, Sue Roe, William Shaw, Dave Swann, Martine McDonagh, Susanna Jones, Alison MacLeod and others. Be the first to see The Illustrated Brighton Moment, the new book that brings Brighton to life on the page. Grab a drink, a bite to eat, then sit back as this unique literary gathering shines a spotlight on the city-by-the-sea.
Event location: Komedia Theatre
Event webpage
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Clive Stafford Smith (May 6 at 7:30pm)
Clive Stafford Smith reads from Bad Men: Guantanamo Bay And The Secret Prisons: Guantanamo Bay and the Secret Prisons.
£7.50
Clive Stafford Smith is a British human rights lawyer, famous for representing prisoners on America's death row and Guantánamo Bay. His latest book uncovers the routine abuse of human rights at the heart of these institutions, exposing the endemic hypocrisy and inhumanity of Bush's so-called ... (more)'War on Terror'. Delivering his devastating verdict with wry humour, irony and quintessentially British understatement, he remains an eternal optimist, shining an unblinking light into the dark recesses of injustice and illegality.
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Sir David King (May 8 at 7:30pm)
Gabrielle Walker discusses The Hot Topic: What We Can Do About Global Warming.
£7.50
Sir David King, the government's former Chief Scientific Adviser, is widely credited with persuading Tony Blair to act on climate change. Yet until now he has been unable to speak publicly about New Labour's attitude to global warming. Here, in collaboration with renowned science writer Gabrielle ... (more)Walker, Sir David reveals what the powers that be really think about the burning issue of our age. Looking beyond the spin and cutting straight to the chase, The Hot Topic presents the facts and examines the solutions on a personal, social, national and international level. You simply can't afford to miss it!
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Tom Paulin (May 10 at 7:30pm)
Tom Paulin discusses The Secret Life of Poems: A Poetry Primer.
£7.50
When Tom Paulin chanced upon a poem by Yeats, he was suddenly struck by the subtlety of its workings: 'I began to imagine a critical account of his or any poet's work which jettisoned all earnest explication of the text and concentrated on sound, cadence, metre, rhyme and form.' The result is ... (more)The Secret Life of Poems, part primer, part anthology and testament to Yeats' dictum that 'Words alone are good.' Join one of the most distinguished poet-critics of our time for a liberating encounter with some of the most celebrated poems in the English language.
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Interested: tomroper Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Dalgit Nagra & Sean O'Brien (May 11 at 4:30pm)
Sean O'Brien reads from The Drowned Book.; Dalgit Nagra reads from Look We Have Coming to Dover!.
£7.50
A powerful sense of place and/or community is often the anchor of the poetic imagination. The baleful industrial-northern landscapes of Sean O'Brien's The Drowned Book - an unprecedented T.S. Eliot and Forward Poetry prize winner - will be familiar terrain to aficionados of the poet's oeuvre. ... (more)Taking in its sights Matthew Arnold's 'land of dreams', Daljit Nagra's debut full-length collection Look We Have Coming to Dover! captured with provocative wit the reality and idealism of the British-Indian experience.
Two major poets. Two distinct Englands. One unmissable poetry double-header!
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Keith Allen (May 12 at 7:30pm)
Keith Allen discusses Grow Up.
£10
From 'borstal boy' to 'swashbuckling thespian' via stand-up comedian, TV presenter, political agitator, Britpop bad boy, jailbird, songsmith, art fiend, hellraiser. Tracing the career trajectory of Keith Allen is like trying to plot the coordinates of a renegade asteroid. Since his Comedy Store ... (more)debut in 1979 Allen has blazed a maverick trail across the entertainment cosmos. His misdemeanours are legend: imbibing his own urine onstage, keeping a pet lion, nightclub trashing, culture show showdowns. As are his triumphs: Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 24 Hour Party People, Robin Hood, Martin Chuzzelwit, Bodies and of course Fat Les and the irrepressible Vindaloo.
Now, aged 54, has Keith Allen finally grown up? Find out as he takes us on a breakneck journey through a life lived sans roadmap and beyond the rule book.
Event location: Theatre Royal Brighton
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
The Parenting Debate: Growing Pains (May 17 at 4:30pm)
Sue Palmer discusses Toxic Childhood: How the Modern World is Damaging Our Children and What We Can Do About It.; Carl Honoré reads from Under Pressure: Rescuing Our Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting.
£7.50
If the daily headlines and stats are to be believed, our children are over-fed, over-stimulated and overwrought. If true, then where is the fault line? Too much freedom? Too little discipline? Overbearing expectation? In a 24/7 world of TV, mobile phones, computer games and chat rooms, how can ... (more)we steer our children towards a healthy, happy and productive engagement with adulthood? Joining
Libby Brooks, Guardian journalist and author, to discuss and debate this pressing topic are Tanya Byron, psychologist, broadcaster and parenting guru; Sue Palmer, author of the best-selling child development bible Toxic Childhood; and Carl Honoré, author of Under Pressure Rescuing Children from the Culture of Hyper-Parenting.
Event location: Corn Exchange
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
All in the Mind (May 18 at 3:00pm)
Susan Greenfield discusses BBC Brain Story: Unlocking Our Inner World of Emotions, Memories, Ideas and Desires.
£7.50
Professor Baroness Susan Greenfield has done more than anyone in recent years to popularise the field of neuroscience. A distinguished scientist, broadcaster, writer and best-selling author, she is also a star turn on the lecture circuit, navigating the complex mysteries of memory, perception ... (more)and cognition with street-smart savvy, irreverent humour and rapid-fire energy. Following her best-selling book and BBC2 series Brain Story, she now embarks on a timely and intriguing quest for meaning in the 21st century, asking how in the face of advancing technology and rising fundamentalism we might safeguard our precious individuality.
Event location: Corn Exchange
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Hanif Kureishi (May 20 at 7:30pm)
Hanif Kureishi reads from Something to Tell You: A Novel.
£7.50
In 1985, Hanif Kureishi's Oscar-nominated My Beautiful Launderette announced the arrival of a prolific new talent on the British cultural landscape. Since then the playwright, screenwriter, novelist and filmmaker has captured the zeitgeist of a multicultural, multiracial Britain in a string of ... (more)award-winning works from the Buddha of Suburbia to Gabriel's Gift. His 2006 screenplay Venus saw its venerable lead Peter O'Toole Oscar and BAFTA bound. Here he unveils his latest novel Something to Tell You, a coming-of-age tale of 70s suburbia, sexual desire and human frailty.
Event location: Corn Exchange
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Alex James (May 21 at 7:30pm)
Alex James reads from Bit of a Blur: The Autobiography.
£7.50
When Blur bass player Alex James called a halt on his well-documented party life for a spot of cheese-making in the Cotswolds, more than a few eyebrows were raised at this contrary act of anti-celebrity. After all, this was the Groucho Club king who out-partied Damien Hirst and blithely blew ... (more)a million on champagne! Find out how this dandyish, elegantly wasted and unrepentant hedonist traded Park Life for country life as a reformed eco-campaigner, organic advocate, broadcaster, journalist and part-time astrophysicist!
Event location: Corn Exchange
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
The Immigration Game (May 21 at 7:30pm)
Rahila Gupta discusses Enslaved.; Kate Clanchy discusses What Is She Doing Here?.
£7.50
2007 celebrated the bi-centenary of the abolition of slavery. Yet beyond the political grandstanding lies a devastating truth. Rahila Gupta's shocking exposé Enslaved reveals an immigrant underclass, starved, imprisoned, beaten and abused, yet living among us unseen and unheard. In What Is She ... (more)Doing Here? award-winning poet Kate Clanchy paints an intimate portrait of Antigona, a Kosovan refugee, who over five years became her project, her protegé and eventually her friend. A compelling behind-the-headlines look at the British 'immigration game'.
Event location: The Old Court House
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Gore Vidal in conversation with Andrew Marr (May 22 at 7:30pm)
£10
What do Tennessee Williams, JFK, Truman Capote, Anaïs Nin, Jack Kerouac, Paul Newman, Orson Welles and Leonard Bernstein have in common? They have all at one time or other entered the magnetic orbit of America's first man of letters - novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, raconteur and ... (more)notorious wit Gore Vidal.
In a rare and unmissable UK visit, Vidal looks back over a remarkable six decade career: from his groundbreaking 1948 novel The City and the Pillar to coruscating critiques of Bush-era US expansionism. Along the way he has run for office, rescripted Ben Hur, starred in The Simpsons , acted for Fellini, battled with Norman Mailer, attempted to impeach the President and still found time to assemble one of the most defiantly individual bodies of work of the last century.
Event location: Concert Hall
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Wendy Cope (May 24 at 3:00pm)
Wendy Cope discusses Two Cures for Love.
£7.50. Doors open at 2:30. "Described by Nicolas Tredell as a 'jet-age Tennyson' and often lauded in the same hushed tones as Larkin and Betjeman, Wendy Cope made her mark on the literary landscape as a pitch-perfect English humourist with her sharply parodic debut Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis ... (more)(1984). Her other collections include the Whitbread-shortlisted If I Don't Know (2001) and Two Cures for Love - a sparkling new annotated miscellany spanning 1979-2006. Chosen by listeners in a BBC Radio 4 poll to succeed Ted Hughes as Poet Laureate in 1998, she is as popular with her public as she is revered by the critics."
Event location: Corn Exchange
Event webpage
Added by christiguc.
Tim Winton & Julie Myerson (May 24 at 5:00pm)
Tim Winton discusses Breath: A Novel.; Julie Myerson discusses Out of Breath.
£7.50
The forces of youth can shape or break a life. So how do writers capture that fleeting and enigmatic moment between childhood and adulthood? Tim Winton has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize: for The Riders(1995) and Dirt Music (2002). His eagerly awaited new novel Breath is an intimate ... (more)and elemental story of lost youth recollected. Julie Myerson's latest novel Out Of Breath is the story of a young girl who encounters a cast of runaway children. The youngest is one day old, the oldest 17; but the themes that lie at the novel's heart are as adult, unsettling and universal as you'd expect from this award-winning novelist.
Join these two highly acclaimed novelists as they navigate the turbulent waters of youth.
Event location: The Old Court House
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Isabel Fonseca, Sadie Jones (May 25 at 3:00pm)
Isabel Fonseca discusses Bury Me Standing: the Gypsies and Their Journey.; Sadie Jones discusses The Outcast.
£7.50. Doors open at 2:30.
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Event webpage
Added by christiguc.
Augusten Burroughs (May 25 at 5:00pm)
Augusten Burroughs discusses A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father.
£7.50
Augusten Burroughs' best-selling memoir Running with Scissors redefined a genre with its left-field take on a childhood in freefall. Hilarious, sardonic and relentlessly eccentric, it thrust its creator into celebrity orbit, dominating the bestseller charts for four years and spawning the big-screen ... (more)treatment c/o Paltrow, Benning, Baldwin and co. His latest off beat exposé A Wolf at the Table explores his troubled relationship with his philosopher father. A rare UK visit from a bona fide US maverick!
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Interested: alicestronaut, DeadGoodBooks Added by DeadGoodBooks.
City Books Literary Lunch with Kate Adie and Libby Purves (May 2 at 12:30pm)
Kate Adie, Into Danger: Risking Your Life for Work.; Libby Purves, Shadow Child.
Two course lunch with wine and coffee £45. Kate Adie joined the BBC in 1969 and became its Chief News Correspondent in 1989. Renowned for reporting from the world's hot spots, she now presents From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4. Her new book Into Danger explores the attraction and compulsion ... (more)of risk. Libby Purves is a broadcaster, columnist, journalist and novelist. Before taking the helm of BBC Radio 4's Midweek in 1984 she anchored the Today programme. Her new novel Shadow Child chronicles a couple's loss of a beloved son.
Event location: The Old Market
Event webpage
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
On Celebrity (May 6 at 7:30pm)
Marina Hyde, Celebrity - A Thinking Person's Guide to a Terrifying World.; Antonia Quirke, Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers.; Cosmo Landesman, Starstruck: Fame, Failure, My Family and Me.
£8. When and how did Celebrity become our creed, our culture, our currency? How did Angelina Jolie become an adviser on Iraqi reconstruction? Charlie Sheen on 9/11? Jude Law on the Taliban? Why do we listen? Why do we care? Brighton Festival examines the modern cult of celebrity in the company of Marina ... (more)Hyde - Guardian columnist (Lost in Showbusiness) and author of the all-new Celebrity - A Thinking Person's Guide to a Terrifying World; Antonia Quirke - journalist, film critic and author of Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers; and Cosmo Landesman, journalist, editor and author of Starstruck: Fame, Failure, My Family and Me.
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Event webpage
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Mary Beard & Marina Warner (May 7 at 8:00pm)
Mary Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found.; Marina Warner.
From Hollywood reinventions to comic strips, myth and classical history remain powerful triggers for our 21st-century imagination. So what draws us to ancient archetypes, folklore and lost empires? Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge is the author of some of the most scholarly ... (more)yet accessible accounts of ancient Rome in print, most recently her trailblazing Pompeii. Novelist, lecturer and cultural historian Marina Warner has been examining the feminine in myth and history since she first emerged as a leading feminist thinker in the 1970s. Together they cut through the cultural appropriations that often skew our vision of the ancient world and its mythologies.
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Event webpage
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Mary Beard & Marina Warner (May 7 at 8:00pm)
Mary Beard.
£8. From Hollywood reinventions to comic strips, myth and classical history remain powerful triggers for our 21st-century imagination. So what draws us to ancient archetypes, folklore and lost empires? Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge is the author of some of the most ... (more)scholarly yet accessible accounts of ancient Rome in print, most recently her trailblazing Pompeii. Novelist, lecturer and cultural historian Marina Warner has been examining the feminine in myth and history since she first emerged as a leading feminist thinker in the 1970s. Together they cut through the cultural appropriations that often skew our vision of the ancient world and its mythologies.
Event location: Pavilion Theatre
Event webpage
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Joan Bakewell & Roberta Taylor (May 8 at 8:00pm)
Joan Bakewell discusses All the Nice Girls.; Roberta Taylor discusses The Reinvention of Ivy Brown.
Tickets £8. First novels usually escape the weighty baggage of expectation. They arrive unknown, clamouring to be heard, yet without fanfare. Not so for the eagerly anticipated literary debuts of BAFTAwinning writer, broadcaster and cultural historian Joan Bakewell and actress Roberta Taylor. Bakewell ... (more)turns to wartime Manchester for her first novel - a touching tale of mothers and daughters, heroism and betrayal, played out on the home front of a benighted Britain. Roberta Taylor, the star of ITV's The Bill (and formerly EastEnders) embraces the harsh British winter of 1963 and a cold climate of secrecy for her first foray into the world of fiction. This follows her best-selling memoir Too Many Mothers.
Event location: The Corn Exchange
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Faber & Faber 80th Birthday Poetry Event (May 10 at 2:30pm)
Alice Oswald reads from A Sleepwalk on the Severn.; Tom Paulin reads from The Road to Inver.
This year marks the 80th birthday of one of the most distinguished publishing houses of our age. Faber & Faber was formed in 1929 with an inaugural list that included the finest poets of the day. To celebrate this legacy, Brighton Festival presents an exclusive Faber poetry double bill. Alice Oswald's ... (more)second collection Dart won the T.S. Eliot prize in 2002. In conjunction with Faber's birthday year, Oswald presents two new works for 2009 - A Sleepwalk on the Severn , a multi-voiced poetic narrative set at night on the Severn Estuary; and Weeds and Wildflowers , a magical meeting of all-new Oswald works and the etchings of Jessica Greenman. With eight collections and two anthologies to his name, plus major critical works and translations, Tom Paulin is one of the most prolific and acclaimed poet / critics of his generation. His most recent collection, The Road to Inver (2004), combined original Paulin verse with a personal anthology of European poetry.
Event location: Corn Exchange
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Jenni Murray (May 13 at 7:30pm)
Jenni Murray discusses Memoirs of A Not So Dutiful Daughter.
Tickets £8 Jenni Murray with Simon Fanshawe Jenni Murray isn't just the voice of Woman's Hour. She is Woman's Hour. Her calm conversational tone and no-nonsense journalistic instinct has steered BBC Radio 4's flagship magazine programme through 20 years of debate, discussion and commentary. In 2006 ... (more)she began a memoir. Part diary, part confessional, Memoirs of a Not so Dutiful Daughter was a characteristically candid book that chronicled the highs and lows of Jenni's own life including her widely publicised battle with breast cancer. In this intimate in conversation, Murray discusses the formative influences, career profile and personal politics that have helped shape one of the UK's most admired broadcasters.
Event location: Sallis Benney Theatre
Interested: DeadGoodBooks Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Jenni Murray (May 13 at 7:30pm)
Jenni Murray.
Tickets £8 Jenni Murray with Simon Fanshawe Jenni Murray isn't just the voice of Woman's Hour. She is Woman's Hour. Her calm conversational tone and no-nonsense journalistic instinct has steered BBC Radio 4's flagship magazine programme through 20 years of debate, discussion and commentary. In 2006 ... (more)she began a memoir. Part diary, part confessional, Memoirs of a Not so Dutiful Daughter was a characteristically candid book that chronicled the highs and lows of Jenni's own life including her widely publicised battle with breast cancer. In this intimate in conversation, Murray discusses the formative influences, career profile and personal politics that have helped shape one of the UK's most admired broadcasters.
Event location: Sallis Benney Theatre
Added by DeadGoodBooks.
Melvyn Bragg: Autobiography and Fiction (May 22 at 8:30pm)
Melvyn Bragg discusses Remember Me....
Tickets £8 To a degree all creative writing is autobiographical. Most writers draw to some extent on their own experience to create character and narrative. But when does fact become fiction and fiction fact? The narrative arc of Melvyn Bragg's most recent quartet of novels (The Soldier's Return to ... (more)Remember Me) closely mirrors the author's own well-publicised story. Here the broadcaster, writer and novelist explores the subtle interplay between the imagined and the real in the creation of fictions and telling of stories.
Event location: Corn Exchange
Interested: DeadGoodBooks Added by DeadGoodBooks.
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