Dorchester Literary Festival

Julian Unthank – How To Be A Screen Writer
2023-10-16 12:00 - 13:00 (Europe/London) | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
**Event Cancelled** We regret to say that this event has been cancelled. If you have purchased tickets, please contact us for a refund.

The dumbest guy in the Room: How a dyslexic who never read a book until he was twenty-one made a career as a screenwriter.

Using examples from his television, feature and short film work, Julian will examine the few highs and many humorous lows of his career as a professional screenwriter.

Julian Unthank is the writer and creator of Acorn TV’s Emmy™ nominated Queens of Mystery, an off-beat, Amélie-esque style take on the traditional world of cosy crime, the second season of which was released in the United States in January 2022.

As well as developing and adapting several shows for Producers in the UK and US, Julian is currently writing Season 2 of Suspect for Channel 4 and has recently completed writing on his fifth season of ITV’s worldwide hit Doc Martin.

He is the writer of the multi-award winning Oscar™ short-listed short Love at First Sight starring John Hurt, as well as being the writer of the zero award winning, 13% on Rotten Tomatoes, medieval slasher-fest Sword of Vengeance starring no one in particular.

Julian has also written on the BBC’s New Tricks and Robin Hood, ITV’s The Bill and Channel 5’s Family Affairs.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Celia Brayfield – Becoming a Writer
2023-10-16 10:30 - 11:30 | Dorset Museum, High West Street, Dorchester, DT1 1XA, United Kingdom
Becoming a Writer

A masterclass for those who are taking their first steps in writing fiction. If you want to start writing, this session will help you to explore your talent and strengthen your skills. With the help of a few short exercises you will learn how to develop a fresh, individual voice, create vivid characters, write spot-on dialogue and build an irresistible narrative. The session will also cover paths to publication for new writers and the practical support which can help you build writing into your life.

Celia Brayfield is an award-winning novelist, journalist and academic. She is the author of nine novels ranging from modern social fiction to international bestsellers, as well as two author biographies, Rebel Writers and the newly published Writing Black Beauty: Anna Sewell, the Creation of a Novel, and the Story of Animal Rights. Celia teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University.

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

A Walk Around Dorchester in the Footsteps of Thomas Hardy
2023-10-15 11:00 - 13:00 | The Town Pump, 1–7 Cornhill, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1BA, United Kingdom
Walking tour around Hardy’s Casterbridge (Dorchester) and Fordington (Durnover) reciting the poetry and prose of this great writer and discovering the places and buildings that inspired him to write The Mayor of Casterbridge. The walk will be guided by Mark Chutter, Chairman and Academic Director of the Thomas Hardy Society.

The tour will finish with an afternoon cream tea at The Old Tea House.

Meet at the Town Pump opposite the Corn Exchange at 11.00

Dogs welcome. Walking boots recommended.

Tickets £12.00 (not including cream tea)

Cream tea £10.00 cash payable at the restaurant.

Robert Peston – Crash
2023-10-14 18:00 - 19:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
London, 2007. It’s summer in the City: the economy is booming, profits are up and the stock market hits near record highs.

But journalist Gil Peck is a lone voice worrying it can’t last. Deep in the plumbing of the financial system, he has noticed strange things happening which could threaten the whole economy. But nobody wants to hear it: not the politicians taking credit for an end to boom and bust, not the bankers pocketing vast bonuses, not even Gil’s bosses at the BBC, who think it’s irrelevant.

When Gil gets a tip-off that a small northern bank has run out of money, everything changes. His report sparks the first run on a UK bank in 140 years. The next day, Marilyn Krol, a director of the Bank of England dies in an apparent suicide.

For Gil, it’s personal. Marilyn was his lover: was his scoop connected to her suicide? Or is there something more sinister in her death? Gil is determined to find out.

The more he investigates, the more he is drawn into the rotten heart of the financial system, where old school ties and secret Oxbridge societies lubricate vast and illegal conflicts of interest. The whole economy has been built on a house of cards, and Gil is threatening to bring it down.

When simply reporting the facts can make or break fortunes, Gil has to ask himself: is he crossing the line between journalist and participant? Are his own conflicts of interest making him reckless? And in a world ruled by greed where nothing and no-one is too big to fail, what price will he pay for uncovering the truth?

Robert Peston is ITV’s political editor, presenter of the politics show ‘Peston’, founder of the education charity, Speakers for Schools (www.speakers4schools.org), and vice president ofHospice UK. He has written four critically acclaimed non-fiction books, How Do We Fix This Mess?, Who Runs Britain?, Brown’s Britain and his latest, WTF?, which was described by the Financial Times as ‘mandatory reading’ for anyone seeking to understand Brexit, Trump and the collapse of confidence in western liberalism. For a decade until the end of 2015, he was at the BBC, as economics editor and business editor, and in the 1990s he was at the Financial Times, as political editor, financial editor and head of investigations. At the BBC he played a prominent role in exposing the causes and consequences of the credit crunch, banking crisis and Great Recession. Peston has won more than 30 awards for his journalism, including Journalist of the Year and Scoop of the Year from the British TV Awards.

Robert Peston will be in conversation with Kate Adie.

Sponsored by Humphries Kirk

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)

Ray Mears – British Woodland
2023-10-14 16:00 - 17:00 | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
Nobody sees and understands woodland better than Ray Mears.

With deep natural history knowledge and practical woodcraft skills, gained over a lifetime of learning from the world’s last remaining indigenous peoples, Ray offers a different way to experience our wooded landscapes. He challenges the old concepts. He looks to our ancestors and shows how man’s hand in shaping woodland is critical. We are not separate from nature, we just need to ensure that our interactions have a positive impact.

With the emphasis on interaction, British Woodland is structured by usage. We learn that sycamore and clematis are among the best woods for burning, pine and oak help us navigate, and hawthorn and beech have edible leaves. Rope can be made from willow, utensils and tools from hazel, and historically, weapons were made from yew and wych elm.

With Ray as our guide, encouraging this aboriginal sense of connection to individual trees, our appreciation of wooded landscapes will change. We can learn how to live inclusively in nature, for our own wellbeing and enjoyment, and also for the future of our planet.

Ray Mears has become recognised throughout the world as an authority on the subject of bushcraft and survival. TV series including Ray Mears’ Bushcraft, Ray Mears’ World of Survival, Extreme Survival and Ray Mears goes Walkabout have made him a household name over the past two decades, but he has spent his whole life learning.

Sponsored by Dorchester BID

Tickets £12.00/£6.00 (students)
