What's on at the weekend at Wigtown Book Festival?

1 October 2019

There are so many treats in store over the next few days at the festival that it can feel like being a kid in a sweetie shop.

So, here are a few of the not-to-be-missed delights that you might well like to consider. They range from the fun, funny and sometimes outrageous through to the quirky, uplifting and intellectually stimulating. All are delivered by remarkable and engaging people from a multitude of backgrounds and perspectives.

Friday:

You remember her from some of the best TV comedy programmes, like the Fast Show, and might well have read Does My Bum Look Big In This – yes, it’s Arabella Weir. She’s joining us with her comedy show Does My Mum Loom Big in This? It sold out in Edinburgh and is soon to go on a national tour.

Saturday:

Kamal Ahmed, author of The Life and Times
of a Very British Man, is half English, half Sudanese. The former BBC journalist talks about growing up mixed race in the 1970s and explains why, despite so many issues, he’s optimistic about the future.

Ah, do you remember pleasant evenings watching All Creatures Great and Small? Feels like an age of bygone innocence. And there she was, Carol Drinkwater as Helen Herriot. Since then she’s gone on to become a very successful writer and will be with us to chat about her latest novel The House on the Edge of the Cliff.

Sunday:

Half a century in wine. Tony Laithwaite is one of those people who has had such an astonishing and full bodied life that you could listen to him talk for hours. A student from Bolton who got a job washing bottles in Bordeaux he went on to become Britain’s most successful wine merchant. Full of anecdotes and reflections, he’ll be talking about life from the vineyard to the boardroom. 

The good, the bad and the mega-famous – Geoffrey Robertson QC has represented them all in the courtroom. He joins us to talk about his revealing and funny memoir Rather His Own Man. Discover how a spotty comprehensive schoolboy became the go to barrister for George Harrison and Julian Assange, Salman Rushdie, Mike Tyson and the Sex Pistols.