A word or two in Warwick

IH

09 October 2009

THE WORD was on the street in Warwick over the weekend - and also in the tea rooms, the church, the theatre, the library, and just about everywhere else.
It was all because of the Warwick Words literary festival which this year welcomed big names such as poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, award-winning novelists Iain Banks and Sarah Waters, broadcaster Joan Bakewell, and actress Diana Quick. There were also a host of other events for young and old, from nursery rhymes at the library to an Edwardian themed drinks evening at the castle.
And the growing success of the festival, run for the eighth time, has prompted organisers to extend it next year from four-days to ten days, running over two weekends instead of one.
Festival director Helen Meeke said: "It was fantastic. I seem to say it was the best yet every year, but it has been getting better each year.
"We had record box office figures, and record attendances with half of events sold out.
"There was a real buzz in the town. We put on a diverse range of events and everyone seemed pleased, and all the artists and authors were really pleased to be here.
"We are a relatively young festival compared with the likes of Cheltenham, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, but we are now well known, and want to offer more.
"Running over two weekends will allow us to stagger events, as people have said they have been unable to attend some events previously because they clashed with others."
Next year's festival runs from October 1 to 10. visit www.warwickwords.co.uk for further details.
* Warwick Words Writers Group's third anthology A Word in Your Ear cost £2.50 from Warwick Books in Market Square. Warwick Words Writers’ Group meets every third Tuesday in the month at The Friends Meeting House, High Street, Warwick, from 7.30pm to 9.30 p.m. Sessions are free (£2 charge to cover venue costs) and open to anyone whatever their previous writing experience. For further information visit www.warwickwords.co.uk or e mail Dorrie Johnson e.djohnson@btinternet.com.
* Read reviews of Sarah Waters' appearance at the festival and the Edwardian Drinks Party, held at Warwick Castle, on our website. Visit www.leamingtonobserver.co.uk

It was entirely appropriate that Sarah Waters should be in conversation with Warwick Words’ patron Andrew Davies at the festival this year as it was he who so successfully adapted the writer’s first novel, Tipping the Velvet, for television.
It was that serialisation that really put Ms Waters in the public eye and since then she has not looked back, turning out one best-seller after another and with her latest novel, The Little Stranger, on the Booker Prize shortlist.
The only drawback was that the Evening with Sarah Waters on Thursday (October 1) could have turned into a mutual admiration society. Thankfully, Ms Waters self-effacing humour and modesty put the brakes on that.
However a Bridge House Theatre packed with fans certainly offered a warm and encouraging environment for Ms Waters to talk about her childhood and how she became an author. Whether the atmosphere brought out the best in her, or vice versa, is hard to say, but she was a delight to listen to.
We heard that an early preoccupation with the macabre led to her first ‘talking book’ when, at the age of 10, she recorded a story she had written about killing her mother.....a woman who is still very much alive by the way, and who provided a source of further anecdotes, told with quiet affection and gentle amusement.
The Little Stranger, which she also discussed with the same humility, is set in Warwickshire: “Somewhere around Bishops Itchington,” she confided, although the house at the centre of the story is fictitious and, she admitted, her knowledge of the county limited. Anyone hoping for another lesbian romp, something which Ms Waters has a reputation for in her writing, will be disappointed. This is a ghost story. But if there are any skeletons in this writer’s cupboard her relaxed charm suggested she could not care less.
BR

The quirky Edwardian Drinks Party certainly played a part in making this year’s Warwick Words the most varied and interesting yet.
With several in the audience joining in the theme by donning period dress for the event at Warwick Castle and everyone taking a turn around the very lifelike Edwardian house party waxworks display there, drinks in hand, before the performance in the Great Hall, it really did feel like you were a party to an Edwardian soiree.
The delightfully melodramatic music hall-style performance involved the unravelling of a true story about an Edwardian aristocrat, Felicity Beauchamp. Aston and Annie, a female double act, charted the social rise and fall of Felicity through a range of characters, including her nanny, her mother, a couple of society ladies and two prostitutes.
Not great literature or drama but a whimsical and, at times, thought-provoking observation of the social mores of the time.
BR

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