With ‘football fever’ and ‘Westminster turmoil’ gripping the nation, we are looking forward to some expert insights from our two opening ‘acts’.
The special relationship that the Guardian’s John Crace has with the corridors of power in Westminster, mixed with his irresistibly acerbic humour, makes Anglia Ruskin University an absolute must on Friday 29 May.
The same applies for our launch event with Simon Kuper and Jonathan Wilson: two sportswriters with their fingers on the pulse of the Beautiful Game who will bring the World Cup well and truly into focus on Thursday 28 May at Colchester United Community Stadium.
In other news, we’re thrilled to be welcoming back cultural historian Ken Worpole to the festival. This time to The Commons Community Kitchen & Café in Colchester on Wednesday 10 June at our Common Treasures event.
Ken will be joining writer/planner/architect Hana Loftus and architect Giles Smith, co-founder of Assemble Collective (Winner of Turner Prize: 2015), to discuss the Common Treasures project, which brings together practical responses to contemporary challenges in rural communities.
Tickets are limited for this event, so again, do get booking now if you would like to come along on the night.
And again, in terms of ticket availability, tickets are running low for our festival finale in Harlow’s Gibberd Garden on Sunday 28 June.
Anyone planning to come to our event with British artist Maggi Hambling and writer James Cahill are advised to get booking now.
This will be followed by fellow British artist/writer Darren Coffield talking to James Cahill about his latest book Hen, Mistress of Mayhem: A Portrait of Henrietta Moraes.
Told from the perspective of the women who knew Henrietta, including Maggi Hambling the last person to paint her – rather than the famous male artists such as Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud who also painted her – Darren’s event is going to be a very special event in one of Essex’s most beautiful secret gardens.
