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The Festival: 6 - 14 November 2026 | Tickets: 01308 424901|bridport.tic@bridport-tc.gov.uk
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Thursday 12 November

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    Event 44 | Jon Woolcott | The Tattooed Hills

    £12.00

    Jon Woolcott - The Tattooed Hills - Journeys to Chalk Figures

    Across the downlands of Britain, giant white horses, warriors and regimental badges are etched into the chalk. These landmarks have captured the human imagination for centuries, permanently altering the contours of our countryside. In The Tattooed Hills, Dorset-based writer and publisher Jon Woolcott explores iconic sites – from the Cerne Abbas Giant to the Uffington White Horse – tracing how each generation has reinterpreted, maintained and even fabricated these hill figures. Blending travelogue, folklore and cultural history, Woolcott examines how these carvings reflect our relationship with the land. Are they timeless symbols of local identity or mirror images of our changing anxieties?

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 10.00 am
    Where: Bull Ballroom
    Sponsored by: David & Sue Orr
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  • Event 45 | Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall | High Fibre Heroes

    £14.00

    Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - High Fibre Heroes

    Join the broadcaster, writer and food campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for a feast of an event. Best known for his River Cottage TV series, bestselling books and his passion for food focused on local, seasonal and ethically produced ingredients, Hugh has reshaped the conversation around how we eat. Now he’s determined to help us all eat more fibre, conjuring 100 recipes from 12 of the most versatile and readily available vegetables. He’ll be chewing things over with the journalist Teddy Jamieson. “Only Hugh could take on a subject like fibre and transform it into something interesting, desirable and delicious,” Meera Sodha.

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 11.30 am
    Where: Bridport Arts Centre
    Sponsored by: Pippa & Hugo James
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  • Event 46 | Lucy Hughes-Hallett | Cleopatra

    £12.00

    Lucy Hughes-Hallett - Cleopatra - Histories, Dreams and Distortions

    For two thousand years, Cleopatra has been continually reinvented: medieval emblem of wifely devotion, Renaissance beauty, Romantic femme fatale and Hollywood temptress. Yet these archetypes tell us less about Egypt’s last pharaoh than about the preoccupations, racial politics and erotic fantasies of the cultures that constructed them. Samuel Johnson Prize-winning biographer Lucy Hughes-Hallett examines the historical monarch alongside her legion of imaginary counterparts. From hostile Roman propaganda to modern pop culture, Hughes-Hallett disentangles the astute political strategist from centuries of myth-making. “Brilliant and discursive”, Antonia Fraser.

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 1.00 pm
    Where: Bull Ballroom
    Sponsored by: Flora Hood
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  • Event 47 | Ed Davey | Why I Care

    £16.50

    Ed Davey - Why I Care - And Why Care Matters

    Care is the thread that runs through Sir Ed Davey’s life. At four, he lost his father. When his mother also became ill with cancer, Ed and his brothers nursed her until she died when Ed was just 15, and that experience was one of his main inspirations to enter politics. Now he and his wife care for their son, who has severe physical and learning disabilities. In Why I Care, the Liberal Democrat Leader reveals his deeply moving personal story. Shedding light on the often invisible, he calls for society and government to lift up the silent carers who form the backbone of our communities. He talks about his experiences with former BBC correspondent Andrew Cassell.

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 2.30 pm
    Where: Electric Palace
    Sponsored by: Fenella Wynford
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  • Event 48 | Steve Crawshaw | Prosecuting the Powerful

    £12.00

    Steve Crawshaw - Prosecuting the Powerful - War Crimes and the Battle for Justice

    Putting a ruling dictator in the dock once seemed unthinkable. Today, as international warrants for world leaders mount, that is changing. Author and human rights advocate Steve Crawshaw introduces his book Prosecuting the Powerful. Drawing on his career as a foreign correspondent for the Independent and senior director at both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Crawshaw offers a front-row seat to the fight against state impunity. From the Nuremberg trials to today’s investigations in Gaza, he brings to life the prosecutors, whistleblowers and survivors challenging political crimes. Is the era of immunity for despots coming to an end?

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 4.00 pm
    Where: Bull Ballroom
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  • Event 49 | Sara Wheeler | Jan Morris

    £14.00

    Sara Wheeler - Jan Morris - A Life

    Jan Morris led a life as vast as her literary output. A pioneering journalist who scooped the 1953 Everest ascent, covered the Eichmann trial and authored acclaimed works on Venice and the British Empire, Morris was equally famed for her 1970s gender transition, a groundbreaking journey documented in her classic memoir, Conundrum. Award-winning biographer Sara Wheeler discusses her authorised life of the literary icon. Granted unrestricted access to Morris’s personal diaries and archives, Wheeler moves beyond the public persona to explore a brilliant, contradictory figure: a Welsh nationalist who wasn’t Welsh, an intrepid traveller who sought the meaning of home, and an unyielding romantic.

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 5.30 pm
    Where: Bridport Arts Centre
    Sponsored by: Felicity Fairbairn
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  • Event 50 | Imani Thompson | Honey

    £8.00

    Imani Thompson - Honey

    Yrsa doesn’t mean to kill the first time, when she knocks a bee into her hated professor’s Sanpellegrino. But it’s a delicious feeling finally having some control. So who’s next? Imani Thompson’s novel about a bored graduate student who murders “bad men” in the name of feminism provoked a 10-way auction between publishers, drawing comparisons with My Sister, the Serial Killer, Butter and Yellowface. She talks about why a darkly comic thriller is the ideal vehicle to talk about race and misogyny – and why she’s the most unlikely creator of a serial killer imaginable. Raised in Dorset, Imani Thompson is a British writer of Scottish, Irish and Jamaican heritage. After studying Sociology at Cambridge University, she worked as a bookseller. “Wow, basically”, Harriet Tyce.

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 7.00 pm
    Where: Bull Ballroom
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  • Event 51 | Literary Dinner Tim Bouverie | Allies at War

    £90.00

    Literary Dinner Tim Bouverie - Allies at War

    We are delighted to welcome prize-winning historian Tim Bouverie as our guest speaker at this year’s George Millar Literary Dinner. Tim will be speaking about his latest book Allies at War: The Rivals who Defeated Hitler. This compelling and timely piece of scholarship from the author of the bestselling Appeasing Hitler tells the story of the coalition of nations that produced victory in 1945, but also the start of a new global rivalry still being felt today. Winner of this year’s Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize, Allies at War is a fast-paced narrative history that uses vivid, first-hand accounts, unpublished diaries and material drawn from over a hundred archives to produce a blow-by-blow account of the high-stakes diplomacy that was every bit as vital in securing victory as the battles fought and won in the field. The result is a novel and illuminating way to tell the story of the second world war. The ticket price includes welcome drinks and a three-course dinner from the kitchens of Symondsbury Estate.

    When: Thursday 12 November 2026 @ 7.00 pm
    Where: Tithe Barn
    Sponsored by: Johnnie & Sophie Boden
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