Dorchester Literary Festival

Gyles Brandreth – Somewhere a Boy and a Bear – A Biography of A A Milne and Winnie-the- Pooh
2025-10-25 13:00 - 14:00 (Europe/London) | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Next year marks the centenary of the publication of Winnie-the-Pooh, one of the best-selling children’s books of all time. Best-selling biographer Gyles Brandreth knew the real Christopher Robin and his new book is both an intimate and revealing biography of A A Milne (to whom there was so much more than Pooh) and a fascinating exploration of fathers and sons, children and their parents and the nature of childhood itself.

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, actor, former MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, now Chancellor of the University of Chester and one of Britain’s most sought-after award ceremony hosts and after-dinner speakers. A star of Celebrity Gogglebox, a veteran of QI and Have I Got News For You, a reporter on The One Show, a presenter on Pointless, a guest on Would I Lie to You? and Sunday Brunch, a regular on This Morning, and since the 1980s one of the mainstays of Just a Minute on BBC Radio 4, his recent books include a biography of Queen Elizabeth II: Elizabeth: an intimate portrait – an immediate Sunday Times No 1 best-seller.

Tickets £32 including a copy of the book. £46 for two tickets including one book. Friends discount applies to ticket only.

Jonathan Sumption – The Challenges of Democracy
2025-10-25 14:30 - 15:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Across the globe, democracy is in crisis – in the UK it has been rocked by Brexit, the pandemic and successive attempts by governments to bypass legal norms. But how did this happen, and where might we go from here? In a provocative series of essays, former Supreme Court judge and Sunday Times-bestselling author, Jonathan Sumption cuts through the political noise with acute analysis of the state of democracy today – from the vulnerabilities of international law, to the deepening suppression of democracy activism in Hong Kong, and from the complexities of human rights legislation to the defence of freedom of speech.

Timely, incisive and wholly original, The Challenges of Democracy applies the brilliance of the ‘cleverest man in Britain’ to the most urgent and far-reaching political issue of our day.

Jonathan Sumption is a British judge and historian, who served as a Supreme Court Justice from 2012 – 2018. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Trials of the State, Law in a Time of Crisis, and Divided Houses, which won the 2009 Wolfson History Prize.

Jonathan Sumption will be in conversation with Jo Durrant.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Jeremy Vine – Murder on Line One
2025-10-25 18:30 - 19:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Darkness looms over sunny Sidmouth, when an unsolved murder comes to the attention of late-night radio talk show host Edward Temmis.

Recently sacked from his beloved job after a devastating tragedy, Edward is cast adrift – until he meets Stevie, whose grandmother, a devoted listener, died in a suspicious fire last year. Well, nobody hurts his listeners and helping Stevie might just give him the purpose he needs.

Joined by his old fling, Kim, they discover Stevie’s grandmother wasn’t the only one of his listeners targeted – this is just the tip of the iceberg.

But who is pursuing his ageing audience and why? And can Edward, Stevie and Kim get to the bottom of this mystery before it’s too late?

Jeremy Vine is a journalist and broadcaster who reaches millions of listeners and viewers per week. He hosts a daily breakfast show on Channel 5 and a peak slot on BBC Radio 2 every lunchtime, presenting news, views, interviews and popular guests on Britain’s most listened-to radio news programme. He has previously hosted Eggheads, Points of View, Crimewatch and Panorama among others, and presents the general election infographics. His early obsession was with Agatha Christie, after his mum gave him Hercule Poirot’s Christmas when he was eleven. By eighteen he had read all sixty-six Agathas, but he waited forty years to write about his first murder. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters. In his spare time, he rides a penny farthing.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Martin Clunes – Meetings With Remarkable Animals
2025-11-12 17:30 - 18:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Please note that this event has been rescheduled for 12th November. Existing ticket holders can email contact@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com if they are unable to make this date and wish to request a refund.

Inspired by Martin Clunes’ own adoption of a former guide dog, Meetings With Remarkable Animals celebrates the fascinating, moving and sometimes astonishing ways animals have enriched our lives. From search and rescue dogs to mine-sniffing rats, and life-saving dolphins, to therapy horses and medal-winning cats and pigeons, the stories brought to life will charm, surprise and astonish in equal measure.

Together with his own life-changing encounters with animals around the world, Martin has celebrated the intelligence, loyalty, and companionship of some truly extraordinary creatures whose lives have been entwined with our own.

Martin Clunes has been a familiar and much-loved face on our television screens since the 1990s. Alongside appearing in hit shows like Men Behaving Badly and Doc Martin, he has presented numerous documentaries from around the world including Lemurs of Madagascar, Islands of the Pacific and A Dog Called Laura. He was awarded the OBE in 2015 for his contribution to drama, charity and the community in Dorset where he lives with his family and lots of animals.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Poetry Slam with Angie Porter
2025-11-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Shire Hall Museum Cafe, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1UY, United Kingdom
An open mic event for local writers and poets.

Join us to hear poets read and perform their work. To sign up to participate at this event please contact us directly via contact@dorchesterliteraryfestival.com or just come along and listen.

Angie Porter is a local poet, performer and painter who brings creativity to the fore in whatever she does. Her monthly She Speaks poetry slams are hugely popular and Angie is actively involved in promoting new poetry work.

Tickets £6.00

Martin Sixsmith – Suing the Kremlin: The battle for Putin’s Billions
2026-10-17 11:00 - 12:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
A quarter of a century in power has allowed Vladimir Putin to enrich himself. He has plundered Russia’s resources, confiscated private businesses and persecuted those who stood against him including Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Bill Browder putting their assets under the control of his friends and cronies, who creamed off billions from nominally-state owned corporations. In 2022 Fortune Magazine estimated Putin’s personal fortune at $200 billion. The revenues he stole created an unparalleled war chest used to pay for the invasion of Ukraine.

This is the fascinating story of what has happened to the men that Putin dispossessed and where their money went. A small team of legal experts has spent the last twenty years pursuing Putin in the courts of the world. These legal experts are based in London and they are set on reclaiming this enormous wealth. The effect on the War in Ukraine will be just one result of their determined efforts.

Martin Sixsmith is a British author and radio/television presenter. His book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, was the basis for the 2013 film Philomena, in which Sixsmith is played by Steve Coogan.

Martin Sixsmith will be in conversation with Kate Adie.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Vassos Alexander – Swimmingly
2026-10-17 13:00 - 14:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Much-loved sports presenter, author and endurance-athlete Vassos Alexander got bitten by the swimming bug during lockdown – heading to his local patch of the Thames to find distraction and solace during that hot summer. Now he can’t pass a body of water without wanting to jump in. Swimmingly is Vassos’ rip-roaring account of how he came to love cold-water swimming, the trials and tribulations of being an outdoor swimmer, and the incredible stories of inspirational people he meets on this journey. Vassos discovers that outdoor swimming is not about being the fastest or the best, it’s about finding a little bit of magic in every stroke, and he uncovers the massive sense of community at the heart of this time-honoured pastime. Along the way he interviews the great and good of the swimming world (Diana Nyad, Lewis Pugh, Lynne Cox and more), and he covers timely and important ground including the water quality in the UK and why we all need to be fighting for us and our wildlife to be able to experience our bodies of water safely.

Vassos Alexander is one of the best known sports presenters in the UK. He co-hosts The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio and has covered every sporting event imaginable, from Olympic Games to World Cups. He is the author of three bestselling books, including Don’t Stop Me Now and Running Up That Hill. Vassos lives in London – and of course an ice bath in the garden!

Vassos Alexander will be in conversation with Steve Harris.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Andrew Lownie – Entitled
2026-10-17 15:00 - 16:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
With sensational new material, biographer Andrew Lownie brings the most extraordinary and dramatic royal story in a generation up to date.

Tracing the lives of the former Prince and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson through their childhoods, courtship, marriage, divorce, careers, charitable activities, and ultimate downfall, this is eye-watering biography at its best.

Investigating the reality of their relationship, Andrew’s Falklands record and business dealings, how they funded their extravagant lifestyles as well as their links with Jeffrey Epstein, Lownie’s rigorously researched account is packed full of revelations, painting a detailed picture that has changed the monarchy forever.

ANDREW LOWNIE was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he was President of the Union, before taking his master’s and doctorate at Edinburgh University. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he later returned to Cambridge as a visiting fellow at Churchill College. He has been a bookseller, publisher, journalist writing for The Times, Telegraph, Wall Street Journal, Spectator, Guardian and since 1988 has run his own literary agency. He is President of the Biographers Club, sits on the board of Biographers International Organisation and is a Trustee of the Campaign for Freedom of Information. His books include the prize-winning Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess and the top ten Sunday Times bestsellers The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves and Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Andrew Lownie will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Jung Chang – Fly Wild Swans: My Mother, Myself and China
2026-10-17 17:00 - 18:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Jung Chang’s Wild Swans was a book that defined a generation, an epic personal history of Jung, her mother and grandmother – ‘three daughters of China’. From her grandmother’s birth in 1909 under the last emperor, through Mao Zedong’s rule, the Cultural Revolution during which Jung’s parents were subject to unbelievable suffering, it finishes as the end of the Mao era in 1978 with Jung’s emigration to Britain. At the time she was one of the first Chinese to leave Communist China for the West.

Nearly half a century on, China has risen from a decrepit, isolated state to a global power. Through those decades, Jung’s life has been intimately entwined with her native land.

Fly, Wild Swans is the sequel and brings the story of Jung’s family – along with that of China – up to date. China is now at another watershed moment: Xi Jinping is seeking to turn the country back towards the old Maoist days and build a Communist state with capitalist features. This new era is greatly affecting the lives of Jung and her mother who still lives in China. Through the arc of their respective lives, Jung gives an immersive, deeply moving and unforgettable account of what it is like to live in a communist dictatorship and the threats modern China poses to the international world order.

JUNG CHANG was born in Sichuan Province, China in 1952. During the Cultural Revolution she worked as a peasant, a “barefoot” doctor, a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming an English-language student at Sichuan University. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 at the University of York – the first person from Communist China to receive a doctorate from a British university.

She is the author of Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, which has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. She wrote a ground-breaking trilogy of the history and personalities of modern China: Mao: The Unknown Story (with Jon Halliday); Empress Dowager Cixi; and Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister. She has been awarded a CBE for services to literature and to history.

Jung Chang will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

This event is sponsored by The King’s Arms Hotel, Dorchester.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Damien Lewis – Behind Enemy Lines: The Special Forces Heroes Who Changed the Course of WW2
2026-10-17 19:00 - 20:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Archie Gibson’s initiation into desert warfare almost proved to be his last. Barrelling through the sand dunes at the wheel of his truck, Gibson spied a searing flash of light up ahead, the signature of a feared German 88mm gun firing… right at him. He leapt from his speeding vehicle just before it was torn apart and turned into a flaming inferno. Gibson’s response was typical: his next vehicle he christened ‘Wha Daur’ – a phrase culled from the Scottish ballad, ‘Who dares meddle with me?’. Wha Daur proved to bethe slowest and most unwieldy of their Long Range Desert Group patrol – the unit that served as the forerunners of the SAS – but that didn’t stop Gibson from spearheading a string of daring and audacious missions. Miraculously, Gibson survived the war. Decades later, he went on to write his wartime story – twice. Gibson’s family decided that their father’s tale was too important not to be told.Now, acclaimed historian Damien Lewis brings Gibson’s story to life. Working from Gibson’s incredibly detailed diaries, his sketchbooks, wartime reports, letters and the gripping account written by Gibson’s own hand, Damien reveals the full story… for the first time.

Damien Lewis is a number one bestselling author whose books have been translated into over forty languages worldwide. Many of his books have been made, or are being made, into movies or TV drama. He has raised tens of thousands of pounds for charitable concerns connectedwith his writings.

This event is sponsored by Agincare.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Literary Walk with Mark Chutter
2026-10-18 11:00 - 14:00 | Thomas Hardy Statue, The Grove, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1UT
LITERARY WALK: WESSEX WRITERSThe Dorchester Literary Festival Walk will be on Sunday 18 October 11am followed by cream tea at the Old Tea House 1–2pm (payable separately).Join Mark Chutter, Chairman and Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society, for a fascinating walk exploring the literary writers of Dorchester including Thomas Hardy, William Barnes , the Powys brothers and Sylvia Townsend Warner.Dogs welcome, walking boots recommended.Meet at the Thomas Hardy Statue at Top ’O Town at 11.00

To book a delicious Dorset cream tea telephone Deborah Dalley at the Old Tea House 01305 263719 to pay separately

Tickets £14.00

Anjana Khatwa – The Whispers of Rock
2026-10-19 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
A poetic journey through deep time, in which geologist Anjana Khatwa weaves scientific knowledge with traditional stories to bring alive the stories that rock holds and tells us.

From the sacred stones of Stonehenge to the rose red city of Petra, from towering mountains to the smallest grains of sand, rocks have had a profound influence on human life. Anjana Khatwa, explains how rocks have been shaped over the eons and how they have shaped us. Boldly alternating between modern science and ancient lore, Khatwa takes us on an exhilarating journey through deep time from bursting volcanoes in the Andes to the wonder of the Dorset coastline, while honouring the Indigenous stories that have brought the land alive over the millennia.

Dr Anjana Khatwa is an award-winning earth scientist who has worked for several universities, the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and the National Trust. A contributor and presenter of TV programmes for the BBC and ITV, she holds the Geographical Award for public engagement by the Royal Geographical Society, the RH Worth Award by the Geological Society of London and the Halstead Medal from the Geologists’ Association. In 2021, she received a National Diversity Award in recognition of her work to champion inclusion within earth science and natural heritage, and was longlisted for the Nan Shepherd Prize for nature writing. She lives with her family in Dorset in a house filled with rocks and fossils collected from all over the world. The Whispers of Rock is her first book.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Brian Jackman – Lion Song: A Portrait of Wild Africa
2026-10-19 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
For five decades, Brian Jackman, Britain’s foremost safari writer, has witnessed Africa’s wildlife drama unfold at the front line. From his first encounter with a roaring lion in Kenya’s Masai Mara in 1974, to documenting the famous Marsh Lions that captivated millions through the BBC’s Big Cat Diary, Jackman has chronicled both the majesty and fragility of Africa’s wilderness. Throughout his career, Brian has championed the cause of wildlife conservation, to highlight the importance of preserving Africa’s wilderness for future generations. His dedication to the continent’s wildlife and landscapes has earned him widespread acclaim in the realm of travel literature.

In this poignant memoir Jackman charts the progress of African conservation, from the days when over a million elephants flourished, to today, when living elephants, though precious to tourism, face extinction from poaching. Through vivid encounters with legendary conservationists such as George Adamson, and graphic accounts of anti-poaching wars, Jackman reveals a continent where lions greet the dawn, but may not for much longer.

Brian Jackman is a freelance journalist and author with a lifetime’s passion for travel and wildlife, who has worked for The Sunday Times and the BBC. He was voted Travel Writer of the Year in 1982 and won the BBC TV’s Wildscreen award for the best commentary script, Osprey. Retired from mainstream travel writing, following his 90th birthday last year, he still writes regularly for Travel Africa Magazine. Brian is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, an enthusiastic supporter of Tusk Trust and a former trustee of the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Poppy Jamie – The Book of Magical Living: 8 Secrets to Inner Power
2026-10-19 14:00 - 15:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
You have felt it. The coincidence too perfect to be random. The knowing that arrives before the facts. The door that closes the week before a better one opens. For centuries, the women who understood magic were called dangerous. They were ahead of their time. Quantum physics now confirms what mystics knew. Magic was never fantasy. It is the invisible force shaping everything we see and feel. Reality is not as fixed as it seems. It responds. It bends. We have been trained to dismiss what we cannot measure. To trust logic over intuition. But the world we are entering will need every ancient power we abandoned. The future does not need more data. It needs people who can feel what the data cannot measure.

Poppy Jamie is an author, broadcaster and leading entrepreneur. She hosts one of the UK’s top spiritual wellness podcasts, Unwind with Poppy. Poppy was awarded the Point of Light honour by the former Prime Minister for her work in mental health. She is a Global Goals Advocate for the U.N and a Forbes’ 30 under 30 recognised entrepreneur. Poppy is also a graduate of LSE and has completed a postgraduate degree in Psychosynthesis. As a proud mystic and tarot reader, Poppy balances her background in cognitive science with the esoteric. She came to this book not only through decades of research, but through lived experience of the most testing kind. She wrote it through two late-stage pregnancy losses and a life that repeatedly refused to unfold as planned. What carried her through was not logic or scientific research. But timeless wisdom.

Poppy Jamie will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

Tickets £14.00 (students £10.00)

Charlie Walker – On Thin Ice
2026-10-19 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
In early 2022, Charlie Walker set out to hike 600 miles along Siberia’s frozen rivers. He hoped to learn who its people are and how they reckon with their haunted past, as well as what the future might hold for this remote corner of the world. Camping in temperatures down to -50 degrees, exploring semi-deserted villages, meeting indigenous Arctic reindeer herders and those whose parents survived the Gulag camps, Walker’s solo trek provides a fascinating insight into the coldest inhabited place on earth. But then, on February 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, with dire consequences for the author. What had begun as an adventure descended into a paranoid nightmare towards the end of the journey as Walker began to suspect he was being monitored by the Russian authorities. Upon finishing the hike he was arrested and imprisoned.

On Thin Ice juxtaposes the harsh beauty of a Siberian winter with a thriller-like series of events that exposes the dark heart of Putin’s propaganda machine. It is both the extraordinary record of one man’s walk through the most inhospitable place on earth and a powerful insight into a deeply troubled – and troubling – nation.

CHARLIE WALKER is an award-winning explorer, author and international keynote speaker. He has travelled over 60,000 miles by foot, horse, raft, bicycle, ski and dugout canoe, in places as varied as the Tibetan plateau, the Mongolian steppe, the Congolese jungle, the Arctic tundra, the highlands of New Guinea and the Sahara Desert. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a ScientificExploration Society Explorer Award winner, and the author of Through Sand & Snow and On Roads That Echo.

This event is sponsored by Abbey Hearing.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Tony Juniper – Just Earth: How a Fairer World Will Save the Planet
2026-10-19 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
From wildfires and floods, to food poverty, degraded rivers, mass migration and conflict, the environmental crisis is already here – and it’s set to get worse. How can people lead good lives without ultimately hastening global collapse, and how might we ask those in developing countries to reject the consumerist culture that has seized richer nations?

In this extraordinary, hopeful book, leading environmentalist Tony Juniper shows the answer lies in fairness. We can’t fight the climate and nature crises without addressing the ever-widening gaps between rich and poor, the powerful and the weak. Green technologies won’t work on their own – in order to save and restore the natural systems which sustain society, the economy and civilisation, it is vital that we break the traps set by inequalities. Including a range of interviews with globally renowned experts and drawing upon 40 years of research, influence, campaigning and advocacy, in Just Earth,Tony Juniper provides answers to how we can achieve real, lasting change.Tony Juniper CBE is a prominent environmental figure, Chair of the British Government’s official conservation agency Natural England and a Fellow with the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. His books include the multi-award winning What Has Nature Ever Done For Us? and Harmony, which was co-authored with His Majesty King Charles III.

Tony Juniper will be in conversation with Mike McCarthy.

This event is sponsored by Dorchester Town Council.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Frank Tallis – Wise: Finding purpose, meaning and wisdom beyond the midpoint of life
2026-10-20 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
We are living longer and, thanks to medical advances, our lifespan after the middle years continues to extend. But how do you age wisely? How do you remain psychologically healthy and fully engagedgiven the immense and daunting challenges of later life – regrets, loss, disappointments, physical deterioration, and mortality?

From ancient Greece to the 21st century, philosophers and psychologists have considered these questions, and remarkably, their opinions converge. There is a single essential task – integration – that once accomplished, equips us to cope with the many problems we are likely to encounter as we get older. What’s more, their insights are supported by cutting-edge neuroscience.

Frank Tallis examines ways to embrace and accept our mortality when our brains are hard-wired to resist it, how we can achieve meaning in our lives, and how we can understand the passage of time and make the most of it.

Dr Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. His books include The Incurable Romantic, The Actof Living and Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna and The Discovery of the Modern Mind, which was a Times book of the year.

Dr Frank Tallis will be in conversation with Laura Kerr.

This event is sponsored by Sculpture by the Lakes

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Olia Hercules – Strong Roots: A Ukranian Family History Through War, Exile and Hope
2026-10-20 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
‘I am writing this story without knowing its end: it begins long before I was born and will continue long after I die. I am writing this story to help myself heal and to make you understand.’

Strong Roots is the story of a century in Ukraine told through four generations of one extraordinary family. It takes us from years of Russification, to Olia’s grandmother’s deportation to snowy wastelands under Stalin, to her Aunt Zhenia’s school protest, to her own parents’ flight from Ukraine when their town was occupied in 2022. This is an ode to the land, to ideas of home and belonging, and to family stories and recipes passed down the generations – the tang of sour cherries, the best way to make borsch. It is an account of resilience in the hardest of circumstances. Strong Roots brims with hope and grief. It lays bare the compromises and betrayals of generations struggling and surviving through war, peace, invasion and exile. It is an uplifting reminder of how much the human spirit can endure when born from a land rich with strong roots.

Born in Kakhovka, in southern Ukraine, Olia Hercules trained as a chef and worked for Ottolenghi and as a recipe developer and food stylist. After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Olia co-founded a global initiative to raise money for Ukraine #CookForUkraine, which has raised over £2 million to date. Olia is the author of four cookbooks, including Mamushka: Recipes From Ukraine and Beyond.

Olia Hercules will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

This event is sponsored by The Gardens Group.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

David Lascelles – Out of Colditz
2026-10-20 14:00 - 15:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
A never-before-told perspective on the British experience at Colditz – one of themost infamous sites in Nazi Germany.

The grandson of a King, the son of the Viceroy of India, Churchill’s nephew. All held captive at the notorious Colditz prisoner of war camp, they were the Prominente: scions of the British establishment, and pawns in the hands of Nazi leaders.

As a German defeat loomed, the SS head of the POW camps Gottlob Berger made a pivotal decision: he would disobey direct orders and spare their lives. ‘Please remember what I have done for you when the war ends,’ he asked. This Nazi overseer, who would later be convicted of war crimes, held their future in his hands.

Eighty years later, David Lascelles – the son of George, Earl of Harewood, who would never have been born if his father had been executed – traces the Prominentes’ extraordinary journey and wonders who Gottlob Berger was and what motivated his fateful decision: compassion? Remorse? Or self-interest?David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood, is a BAFTA-winning film and television producer. He is one of the founders of Heirs of Slavery, a campaign group that seeks to redress the horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade. He lives in Yorkshire. Out of Colditz is his second book.

David Lascelles will be in conversation with David Swann.

This event is sponsored by NFU Mutual, Dorchester.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Alexandra Shulman – Black Coffee and Red Lipstick
2026-10-20 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Weaving ideas about our domestic and daily life with thoughts on style and the way wepresent ourselves, Alexandra Shulman combines anecdotes and observations from 25 years spent editing British Vogue and her current life as a freelance writer and commentator. She draws onher experiences as a magazine editor but also a mother, daughter, sibling, girlfriend,housekeeper and lover of shopping.

Alexandra left her job at Vogue in 2017 to embark on a different way of life and while thisis in no way a book of self-discovery it does touch on the question of things or patterns ofbehaviour that make us who we are?

From her quest for the perfect eyeliner, to why picnics are so delightful and our hair matters, friendship,siblings, gardening and grey hair will be explored with Alexandra’s characteristic witand incisiveness.

Alexandra Shulman was British Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief from 1992 to 2017 and was awarded the CBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours list. She is currently a columnist for the Mail on Sunday, a contributor to a variety of newspapers and magazines and a Vice President of the London Library. She has written two novels, Can We Still Be Friends and The Parrots and Inside Vogue: The Diary of My 100th Year.

Alexandra Shulman will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Jonathan Fennell – Collapse: A Global History of the Second World War, 1931-1941
2026-10-20 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Between 1931 and 1949, a series of crises broke out that threatened collective security, world order and the internal cohesion of states across the globe. At the heart of these crises was a world war that shook the foundations of global power, a watershed moment in the history of the Twentieth Century. Collapse is the first volume of an authoritative trilogy that tells the story of the Second World War through this international lens, covering theatres of war in multiple continents and analysing worldwide trends.

Combining military, political, social and economic history, Professor Jonathan Fennell explores the first part of this “long war”, from 1931-1942, through exciting new sources that explore what it really meant to live through this violent time. Using an innovative approach which explores the personal alongside the political, the global alongside the local, he shows how a world that many considered civilised collapsed into barbarity.

Through immersive storytelling and a cast of characters and communities, Collapse links the home and battle fronts and ties together the stories of great campaigns with the dramatic political and social changes of the Twentieth Century, and in doing so, transforms our understanding of this monumental conflict.

Jonathan Fennell is Professor of the History of War and Society at King’s College London, where he is Director of Research at the Defence Studies Department, Co-Director of the Sir Michael Howard Centre for the History of War and Co-Founder and President of the international scholarly society, the Second World War Research Group. His most recent monograph, Fighting the People’s War: The British and Commonwealth Armies and the Second World War, won the Duke of Wellington Medal for Military History 2020, and also the Society for Army Historical Research Templer Medal.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

John Wright – Grasslands
2026-10-21 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
A sparkling green field. A dull and scrubby patch of grass. One is the sanitised evidence of monoculture, the other a world teeming with more life than you could ever imagine. Join John Wright, one of our best-known naturalists, as he uncovers the beauty and rich diversity of Britain’s grasslands. Bursting with mushrooms, lichen and wildflowers, home to butterflies, bees and beetles, and vital to foxes and birds alike, these grasslands are part of our natural heritage.

From meadows to mires to heathlands, John Wright introduces them in all their variety: the history of how grasslands came to be, what can be found there, what we risk with their loss and what can be done to save what is left. Most of all, he shows why we should care. Because grasslands are never just patches of grass.

John Wright is one of Great Britain’s best-known naturalists and leading experts on fungi. His books include A Spotter’s Guide to the Countryside, A Natural History of the Hedgerow and the bestselling The Forager’s Calendar. He lives in Dorset, near the glorious grassland of Hog Cliff.

This event is sponsored by The Duchy of Cornwall.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Samira Ahmed – A Hard Day’s Night
2026-10-21 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
How did a film made to capture a pop phenomenon in real time become a genuine cinematic classic?Journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed explores how this beloved film captures both the band’s coveted charisma and the shifting cultural landscape of 1960s Britain.

A life-long fan, Samira first discovered the film at the age of 11 and then in 2023 she uncovered the earliest known complete concert recording of the Beatles, taken at Stowe School in 1963 which made headlines around the world. Blending documentary-style realism with a subversion of classnorms, the film not only reflects the Beatles’ role in reshaping celebrity and social identity, but also shaped Samira’s understanding of fame and the media as she embarked on a career in journalism. Samira examines its lasting legacy, showing how its portrayal of Beatlemania influenced generations and continues to serve as a powerful metaphor for modern celebrity culture.

Samira Ahmed is a journalist, writer, and BBC broadcaster. She presents Front Row on BBC Radio 4, Newswatch on BBC One, and has made acclaimed documentaries including Art of Persia (BBC Four), Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse, and I Dressed Ziggy Stardust (BBC Radio 4). In 2020, she was named Audio Presenter of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, and New Humanist, where she also writes a regular column. She is President of the Twentieth Century Society, which campaigns to preserve modern architecture and design. A Hard Day’s Night is her first book.

Samira Ahmed will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

This event is sponsored by Michael and Eve Bonham Cozens.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Simon Parker - The Wild Ride Home
2026-10-21 14:00 - 15:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Outdoor enthusiast, cyclist and acclaimed travel writer Simon Parker was restless for a new adventure, but with a small baby his explorations needed to begin at home. He decided to cycle through all 15 of the UK’s national parks in the anniversary year of the first one’s founding, the Peak District. While each of the national parks offered beauty and surprises, all of them revealed the challenges of making space for nature on an overpopulated island. His days within the parks, from Dartmoor to Cairngorms, via the Yorkshire Dales and The Broads, could be idyllic or enraging. He explored wild and remote moors and mountain tops but also got stuck in plenty of holiday traffic. He developed an injury, walked where the bike wouldn’t go, accepted pints and campsite pitches, and talked to everyone he met. From campers, conservationists, walkers, landowners, farmers, small business owners, commoners, pony lovers, newcomers, tourists, birders and artists – everyone is seeking something different from the hills, dales and waters of the UK. Yet all share the urge for space, fresh air, beauty and the humbled humanity it brings. This is a page-turning, revealing perspective of the British and the wild-ish landscapes they love.

Simon Parker is a multi-award-winning travel writer and filmmaker who has reported from more than half of the world’s countries. He has cycled across the USA, produced films about endangered species in Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and writes for the Telegraph, Times and National Geographic. When he’s not writing books or newspaper articles he manages his own production company, Simon Parker Creative.

Simon Parker will be in conversation with Mike McCarthy.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Anthony Seldon – Sunak at 10
2026-10-21 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
After almost a decade and a half of Tory rule, the 2024 General Election saw the Conservatives suffer their worst-ever defeat: they received 7.14 million fewer votes than in 2019; 23.7 per cent is their lowest ever vote share; and their current 121 MP contingent is their smallest since 1832. Meanwhile, the rise of Reform threatens the party’s very existence.

How did it all go wrong so quickly, following Boris Johnson’s record-setting win in 2019?

From taking office amidst the cost of living and energy supply crises and the panic caused by Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget, through the agenda-dominating Ukraine and Gaza wars and the Rwanda Asylum Plan, to the stunning 2023 local election results, Sunak at 10 is the definitive and jaw-dropping window into Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

Sir Anthony Seldon is an educator, historian, writer and commentator. He is autor or editor of over fifty books on contemporary history, politics and education, including The Sunday Times bestsellers Johnson at 10 , Truss at 10, and The Path of Light.

Sir Anthony Seldon will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Johnny Ball – Stories That Must Be Told
2026-10-21 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Johnny Ball spent seventeen years working as a stand up comedian, and twenty years with BBC Television, where he wrote and presented twenty series of award winning programmes, including Play School, Think of a Number and Think Again, followed by five educational stage musicals, which played nationwide to many thousands of students and the first part of his autobiography My Previous Life in Comedy. Here, Johnny Ball charts his extraordinary journey from stand-up comedy to children’s television fame and beyond, sharing the highs and lows of his roller coaster career. Told with humour, resilience, and unforgettable stories that reveal a life lived in the spotlight.

This event is sponsored by Battens Solicitors.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Anthony Seldon – The Path of Light
2026-10-22 10:30 - 11:30 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
In 2021, Anthony Seldon, inspired by a fallen First World War soldier who dreamed of a ‘Via Sacra’ tocommemorate the war dead and stand as a marker for the triumph of peace, set out on a 1,000km walktracing the historic route of the Western Front. He went on to recount that story in the widely acclaimedThe Path of Peace. But there wasn’t to be lasting peace, with the continent falling into an even morehorrific war two decades later.

In The Path of Light, Seldon sets out to walk a new 1,300 km route from the same starting point atKilometre Zero to Auschwitz, discovering in the towns and villages through which he walks stories ofwomen and men who bravely protected the vulnerable and stood up to evil in the face of unimaginablebrutality during the Second World War.

As he ruminates on these ‘figures of light’, whose uplifting stories he encounters along his path, a pattern begins to emerge about how we can draw on their lives to build a better and more peaceful world, never more needed than now, with the ominous and increasing drumbeat of belligerence globally that month by month is the constant backdrop of his walk between 2023 and 2025. It proved a harder book to write than The Path of Peace. But it was a project he knew he had to complete, whatever the cost.

Sir Anthony Seldon is an educator, historian, writer and commentator. He is author or editor of over fortybooks on contemporary history, politics and education, including the Sunday Times bestsellers Johnsonat 10 and Truss at 10.

Sir Anthony Seldon will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

This event is sponsored by Wessex Private General Practice.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Jonn Elledge – 31 Inventions that Built Our World
2026-10-22 12:00 - 13:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
For over 10,000 years, the human race has been busy altering our environment and embracing ‘progress’, evolving seamlessly from hunter gatherers to the modern urban sophisticates we seeourselves as today. But what are the ideas and inventions that enabled humanity to become, by the early 21st century, a majority urban species for the first time? How did the essential infrastructure of modern life – the innovations that we barely even notice, but without which our world would fall apart – happen?

With his characteristic wit and boundless curiosity, Jonn Elledge invites us to join him on a fascinating and often surprising tour of the ideas and technologies that made modernity possible. From elevators to electric lighting, street numbering to sewers, he guides us through the history of civilisation itself.

Jonn Elledge is the author of the number-one bestseller, A History of the World in 47 Borders. A New Statesman and New World columnist, he is a regular on the podcasts Oh God, What Now? and the late, lamented Paper Cuts, and a frequent contributor to The i Paper, the Guardian and assorted other publications. He was previously an assistant editor at the New Statesman, where he created and ran its urbanism-focused CityMetric site, spending six happy years writing about cities, maps and borders and hosting the Skylines podcast. He has written three books, as well as over 200 editions of the Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. He lives in London, with the best dog in the world.

Jonn Elledge will be in conversation with Jenny Devitt.

This event is sponsored by Wessex Internet.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Victoria Hislop – The Wine Dark Sea
2026-10-22 14:00 - 15:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Beloved, bestselling author Victoria Hislop explores the turbulence of the post-war era in Greece in this unforgettable and riveting new novel that will delight those fans who cherish The Island and The Figurine.

During three years of brutal civil war in Greece, thousands of children were caught in the chaos that swept across the country. Huge numbers were orphaned, many found themselves imprisoned alongside their mothers and others were left to fend for themselves. The Wine-Dark Sea follows the travails of a mother, searching for both a daughter who has been kidnapped and taken behind the Iron Curtain and a boy who, unbeknown to her, has been sold into adoption.

Victoria Hislop said, ‘I am excited about the publication of The Wine-Dark Sea, which is my tenthbook. The post-war period in Greece has many untold stories, buried through shame and a desireto forget. Research took me not just to obscure corners of Greece itself, but also outside it, to Hungary and the US. I continue to learn so much about Greece, in particular the lesser-known parts of its history, which are a source of great inspiration. The hidden stories of this country, that has made me its own, continue to fascinate me and provide rich material for fiction.ʼ

Victoria Hislop’s debut novel The Island has sold over 6 million copies. Her books have been translated into forty languages and Victoria was executive producer on the adaptations of three of her novels for Greek television. She divides her time between England and Greece and in 2020 was granted honorary citizenship by the President of Greece. She is Vice President of the British School at Athens, is on the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles and also on the Advisory Board for the Parthenon Project. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Patra and Sheffield. In 2025, she was awarded the Byron Medal for Philhellenism at the Athens Academy and became the first woman to become an honorary member of the Society of Greek Writers.

Victoria Hislop will be in conversation with Vanessa Berridge.

This event is sponsored by Dorchester BID

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Blake Morrison – Afterburn and On Memoir
2026-10-22 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
In Afterburn, Blake Morrison returns to poetry, his first calling, to offer scenes from his own life and the lives of others. In psychology, ‘afterburn’ refers to the time before a past event is assimilated – an idea that resonates through these poems (which themselves linger after reading) about memory and our attempts to articulate, shape or contain it.

Throughout the collection, not least in two extraordinary sequences – one about his sister, the other about Elizabeth Bishop – the poet sees with new eyes the turning points in a life’s accidental course. What holds his wise, touching, melancholy yet joyful poems together are the small intimacies that bind us to others, under time’s lengthening shadow: ‘you moved too fast for me to catch you / and so did the years.’

On Memoir is a gloriously freewheeling exploration of narrative non-fiction, its challenges, ethics and charms, and its power to move and change us. From AI to Ethics to Politics to Sex, there is something for every reader and writer in this gorgeous compendium. Gleaned from a lifetime as a passionate reader of others’ lives, as well as an unflinchingly honest chronicler of his own, Morrison’s A-Z is a treasure trove of thoughtful literary exploration, amusing observations, and fascinating finds.

Blake Morrison is a poet, novelist and journalist. His non-fiction books include And When Did You Last See Your Father?, which won the J. R. Ackerley Prize and the Esquire/Volvo/Waterstone’s Non-Fiction Book Award, As If , Things My Mother Never Told Me, and Two Sisters. His poetry includes the collections Dark Glasses, winner of a Somerset Maugham Award, and Shingle Street. He is a regular literary critic for the Guardian and the London Review of Books.

Blake Morrison will be in conversation with Lulu Taylor.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)
