Cheltenham Literature Festival 2007 review

Check out SoGlos.com's review of the daily highlights from the Times Cheltenham Literature Festival 2007.

As well as being the world’s greatest gathering of literary lovers, the Cheltenham Literature Festival is undoubtedly one of the biggest annual events in Gloucestershire’s event calendar. As such wild horses (or bumper-to-bumper traffic) couldn’t keep the SoGlos.com team away from the sparkling line-up of events being held in the spa town.

Check-out our day-to-day highlights from this year’s book bonanza to find out who we saw.

14 October 2007 – Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

The last, but by no means least eventful day at Cheltenham Literature Festival 2007 opened on a briskly cold Sunday morning, when fans of children’s fiction filed into the Cheltenham Town Hall to hear what juicy secrets Jacqueline Wilson and illustrator Nick Sharratt held up their sleeves. The book signing queues were still patiently queuing to get their copies of The Kiss autographed when the day ended with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s more adult affair, well almost.

River Cottage’s finest, the scruffy bespectacled Hugh, was supposed to be at the Festival to promote the latest in his long line of gastronomic hardbacks, but the postponement of his brand new River Cottage Fish Book didn’t mean the former chef didn’t have anything to talk about. Quite to the contrary, Fearnley-Whittingstall would still be on stage this Christmas, and we would have been there still avidly eating-up his words along with the rest of the crowd, if his Dorset farm not to mention young family didn’t need him back.

Skipping merrily along through his childhood on a farm in Gloucestershire (queue a few local cheers), his sacking from London’s reputed River Café (queue much belly laughter) and his decision to move to the country and start a more self-sufficient existence at River Cottage (queue a potent mix of nostalgic nodding from fans of the first series and green-eyed jealousy from those who obviously wanted a slice of the good life for themselves), and Hugh arrived at his current River Cottage HQ.

Offering advice on everything from how to get your children to not be picky eaters, what fish to choose and when, the suspicious nature of GM crops, and how everyone should and could do their little bit to be more sustainable – including everything from keeping a couple of chickens and cutting down on meat, to shopping at farmers markets and eating seasonally – the informative and highly entertaining evening topped 2007’s eclectic Cheltenham Literature Festival very nicely indeed.

Buy Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage Fish Book for £22.49 at amazon.co.uk.

13 October 2007 – Alex James

He may have curbed his wild party ways and swapped his hedonistic lifestyle for a Cotswolds cheese farm down the road, but former Blur bassist Alex James cannot keep a date it seems.

Cancelling his appearance at Cheltenham Literature Festival this year, for a very good reason no doubt, we were left with an afternoon of wondering the stalls of the Promenade’s French Market instead of hearing the band bad boy’s tales of extravagant thrill-seeking.

It’s not very rock n roll we admit, but a chunky slice of camembert, washed down with a glass of red, might eventually make us feel better about the Britpop no show.

Buy Alex James’ Bit of a Blur for £11.89 at amazon.co.uk.

12 October 2007 – Richard Hammond

The Hamster, aka Richard Hammond, was undoubtedly one of the Cheltenham Literature Festival’s highlights this year. As if being a cheekily charismatic presenter on the excruciatingly popular Top Gear wasn’t enough, he survived a near fatal crash while trying to break the British land speed record, making the front page headlines across the UK, and to top it all he used to live in Cheltenham.

The diminutive, self-confessed adrenaline junkie’s debut at the Festival coincided with the launch of his compelling, bestselling memoir On the Edge, which he co-authored with his wife Mindy Hammond. Spanning his childhood, when he was ‘short, you’ll be surprised to hear,’ to landing ‘the best job on the planet,’ he explained how he came to be ‘a dare devil and a bit of a show-off,’ growing up in Birmingham and ultimately how this led to the day when he strapped himself onto the front of jet engine with the power of 11 Formula One cars.

‘Safety was a concern, but not a worry,’ Hammond confessed, about the most talked about few seconds of his life. ‘There were trial runs and safety checks, and if we didn’t think it was safe we wouldn’t have gone for the record,’ he said. After explaining the simple controls in the jet car, a more serious tone was adopted, as the motor journalist went on to describe his ill-fated final run – with the power dial set to 125 per cent on the awesomely powerful one tonne car.

‘There was no fear of the unknown now, but there was some fear of what I knew to expect and I readied myself for it… the clock reads 288.3mph… by the time my senses have sped up enough to keep a pace with what’s going I realise that something is wrong… I registered that something terrible had happened and I was in trouble, but I couldn’t remember what… my foot hits the break, it’s a futile gesture… it’s instinctive, but useless… I am going to crash… the next thing to happen, I am quietly convinced, is that I am going to die.’

It was a dramatic moment in his life, as well as a dramatic retelling in his biography, and evening in Cheltenham, but of course, as we all now know Richard Hammond doesn’t die. In fact just over a year later, he is sitting in the slightly chilly Town Hall in Cheltenham recounting the life changing event – to rapturous applause.

Buy Richard Hammond’s On the Edge for £9.49 at amazon.co.uk.

11 October 2007 – Bruce Parry

Television’s Tribe globetrotter Bruce Parry sauntered onto Cheltenham Town Hall’s stage almost unrecognisably clean shaven, wearing a disappointingly average jeans and shirt combination that contrasted sharply with the wardrobe of loin cloths and war paint that Cheltenham Literature Festival’s audience might have expected from the intrepid adventurer.

But on a chilly October evening, despite the conservative dress, before a sell-out crowd of more than 800, Bruce Parry still managed to leave the females in the audience swooning, with more than a few of the males fighting back seething jealousy to be swept up by the pint-sized explorers charm – including the gushing compere who began by asking: ‘Naked cattle-jumping, ear-wax eating grubs, strange drug experiences, scarification – anything you won’t try?’

Sipping red wine and beginning in the bashfully self-depreciating style that has captivated television audiences since Tribe first hit BBC2’s airwaves three years ago, a chuckling Parry replied: ‘No, it’s all up for grabs – if their doing it then I will too.’

‘If I am going to live with them and tell their story, I am going to live with them… I’m not going to slip off with the crew and eat Spaghetti Bolognese.’ But he added: ‘It isn’t a game show – it’s not about how much can Bruce Parry hack. It’s about respect. It’s about breaking down barriers. I’ll drink from the same water as them, but at the same time I’ll take a malaria tablet – I’m not a fool, I don’t need to put myself at risk if I don’t have to.’

It’s this down-to-earth, and at times downright bonkers, attitude which has seen him spearing-boar, wrestling-reindeer, convulsing with frog-poison, undergoing painful piercings and eating some dubious meals which have had viewers gawping and gagging in equal measures, as Parry has gallivanted through countries including New Guinea, Mongolia, Ethiopia, Malaysia, Brazil, Russia and India for our viewing pleasure.

Parry said: ‘I want to get into the living rooms of people who watch Big Brother.’ Adding: ‘I’m not interested in how to rub sticks together and make a fire or making bows and arrows – I am interested in society, in people, in us, in the future of the planet and what we can learn from these incredible cultures that are disappearing because of us,’ brimming over with enthusiasm, before the rapt audience.

While freely admitting he has one of the best jobs on the planet, a question on everyone’s lips (apart from who would win in a fight Bruce Parry, Bear Grylls or Ray Mears – to which Bruce admits it would be Ray every time), is there are time when the seemingly fearless former British Marine gets scared?

Despite the poisoned darts, tropical diseases and danger of wild animal attacks, Bruce Parry’s reveals exactly why his everyman charm has made him universally accepted by both British television viewers and remote tribes across the globe, saying: ‘Not because of danger – mostly of embarrassment, I mean being filmed naked, covered in poo and running over a bunch of cows, of course I get scared.’

With that in mind, on second thoughts, the audience was probably relieved that Bruce Parry trekked to Cheltenham in a sober shirt and jeans combo.

Buy Bruce Parry’s Tribe - Adventures in a Changing World for £12 at amazon.co.uk.

10 October 2007 - Julian Clary

The flamboyant television star Julian Clary isn’t exactly renowned for his shy demeanour, and his appearance at the Cheltenham Literature Festival proved to be just the explosive affair that the crowds of fans at Cheltenham Town Hall hoped for.

Walking on stage to rapturous applause, sporting what Clary described as a ‘comedy Nazi haircut’, the comic explained that that evening he should have been in the West End, where he’s currently playing the role of the MC in the musical Cabaret, but he said he couldn’t turn down the chance to come to Cheltenham again – to the obvious delight of the audience.

Having been to the Festival once before to publicise his, now extremely successful, auto-biography A Young Man’s Passage, Clary’s second visit to Cheltenham marked the imminent publishing of his debut novel, Murder Most Fab, which he explained took him more than ten years to write, put him under enormous pressure and had never been planned out.

After debating with the compère whether Murder Most Fab is a comedy, thriller or romance, the comedian settled on the idea that it was a bit of everything, but conceded that the ‘chick-Lit’ cover means that ‘no heterosexual man will be want to be seen dead reading it on a train.’

Murder Most Fab tells the tale of lead character Johnny Debonair, whose rise and fall from celebrity is punctuated by murder and mayhem in the television industry, not to mention ‘some very vulgar sex scenes, calmed down with a bit of Shakespeare,’ according to Clary.

Reading the first few pages, Clary confided that he had been interested in murder all his life, and despite not knowing anything about the murderous-side of the storyline, he told the audience that the novel followed a similar path to his autobiography – allowing him to get revenge on people he hadn’t liked in his career, as well as offering the opportunity for his comedy writing to last far longer than anything he has done on television.

From starring with his dog Fanny in the Joan Collins Fan Club, taking to the ballroom on Strictly Come Dancing and starring on stage in Cabaret to novel-writing, Julian Clary has proven what a multi-talented professional the softly-spoken, razor-sharp comedian he can be – much to the approval of the Cheltenham Literature Festival crowds, who snapped-up signed copies of Murder Most Fab by the trolley load, once Clary had cleared the stage.

Buy Murder Most Fab for £10 at amazon.co.uk.

9 October 2007 – Sir Ranulph Fiennes

After a charming and utterly motivating account of his life, delivered in a thoroughly British self-depreciating style and spliced with dry humour, it was blindingly apparent for everyone in the Everyman Theatre’s packed crowd why the Guinness Book of World Records dubbed Sir Ranulph Fiennes ‘the world’s greatest living explorer’.

With tales of growing-up as a boy in South Africa through to his Mother’s attempt to get him educated at some of the best English schools including Eton, Fiennes took Cheltenham’s crowds on a fast-paced journey through his action-packed life to the present day sixtysomething that stood before us – beginning with the unlikely statement: ‘I became an adventurer simply to pay the gas bill… because I couldn’t get A’ Levels.’

From an army career which spanned leading troops in Oman and joining the SAS – including a prank to blow up the dam on the film set of Doctor Doolittle and plotting to rob a bank which made the Times headlines – to becoming the first man to visit both the north and south poles by land, discovering the Lost City of Ubar, and crossing the Antarctic by foot, the audience were left astounded that one man could have achieved so much.

Despite telling the audience about almost dying while ascending Everest, suffering from a heart attack and undergoing a double bypass operation just three months before running seven marathons on seven continents and losing fingers to frostbite due to a mistake of a few seconds, when asked by one audience member when has he been most scared in his life, he replied without hesitation ‘when my wife once drove me through London in rush hour’.

After a breath-taking hour, with audience members’ hands shooting up across the theatre, the final thought-provoking question asked was ‘if you were reincarnated would you do it all again?’, to which Fiennes stated simply to roars of laughter: ‘No, I would get my maths and science A’ Levels.’

Ranulph Fiennes’ autobiography Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know costs £12 at amazon.co.uk.

8 October 2007 – Ken Loach

While there was a noticeable decline in the traffic circulating around Cheltenham’s one-way streets today, the Cheltenham Literature Festival was nonetheless buzzing with dedicated booklovers who had managed to wrangle a day off work to attend Monday’s line-up of events.

Unluckily for the SoGlos.com team, and all the other ticketholders of course, Ken Loach unfortunately had to pull out of his Cheltenham Town Hall talk this evening due to personal reasons.

The acclaimed British director of cult classics including Kes and Cathy Come Home was sorely missed, but has not been the only guest to cancel his date at this year’s Literature Festival at the last minute, with Russell Brand also disappointing fans on Saturday evening.

Buy Kes and Cathy Come Home at amazon.co.uk.

7 October 2007 - Lucy and Stephen Hawking

It’s not very often that a theoretical physicist commands the rapturous applause of hundreds of members of the public, but Professor Stephen Hawking isn’t just any theoretical physicist. Not only is he the bestselling author of the popular science title A Brief History of Time, but the scientist has now turned to children’s writing too, not to mention being a Simpsons character.

In an extremely rare public appearance, Stephen Hawking and his daughter Lucy Hawking saw Cheltenham Literature Festival goers flocking to the Centaur quite literally by the bus-load today, to hear more about the father and daughter’s co-written book George’s Secret Key to the Universe.

The family-friendly event, held in association with Gloucestershire’s Star Centre, saw Lucy explain more about the story of George – a boy who, with the help of his neighbour Annie and her scientist father Eric, uses a super computer to create doors to anywhere in the universe.

Lucy’s enthusiastic storytelling also took the audience on a journey across the solar system during the morning talk, littering her presentation with videos of interviews with astronauts, as well as giving the audience a fistful of informative facts – did you know for example that one million planet earths can fit into the sun? No, neither did we – but it’s bound to come up in a pub quiz at some point.

Next it was her father’s turn in the limelight as Stephen Hawking talked about black holes in an accessible way that the kids in the crowd may have understood, but at times had the parents scratching their heads, before cracking a few jokes at the expense of the French. The mind-expanding voyage came to a close, with just enough time for a few questions from the audience, which ended with the particularly profound question: ‘What did it feel like to be on the Simpsons?’ to which Professor Hawking replied: ‘I liked being given rocket launchers, but wasn’t so keen on my yellow face’.

For all who attended this very special event, seeing one of the modern day’s most influential scientists was a rare privilege and a true highlight of this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Buy George's Secret Key to the Universe for £7.74 at amazon.co.uk.

With queues of crawling traffic causing chaos across Prestbury, Michael Palin’s popularity has never been more visible, and frustrating, for those making their way to the Centaur to see the Monty Python’s sell-out talk at the Cheltenham Racecourse.

Those with enough luck, or foresight, to have secured their Centaur seats were thanked for their persistence today though as Palin took the capacity audience on a breathtaking whistle-stop, slide-show journey across New Europe – which the sixty-something swore ‘will definitely be my last trip,’ before adding ‘but then again I said that after 80 Days, Pole to Pole, Full Circle, Hemingway, Sahara and Himalaya… I seem to keep getting my arm twisted by the rest of the crew.’

Complementing the BBC television series and his new book, cunningly-entitled Michael Palin’s New Europe, we were transported from the snow-topped mountains of Slovenia through Croatia and the former Yugoslavia to Albania, before traipsing onwards to Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary, with a sojourn to and The Ukraine and The Czech Republic, then onwards through Slovakia, former East Germany, Poland, the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, before finally following the presenter’s footsteps to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

In just over an hour the audience was pelted with cultural and historical facts at a dizzying speed, with just enough breaths for Palin’s slick presentation to be littered with comedic off-camera anecdotes of truffle omelette stirring, making a Sufi imam laugh, getting caught in a snow blizzard and his wife’s difficulties reading him the football scores while he’s traipsing the globe, not to mention Pakistan accidentally buying the rights to Monty Python's Flying Circus and meeting a group of eastern European lumberjacks, who were ‘all okay’.

While an envious shade of green collectively emitted from the audience after hearing the tall tales of the presenter’s global gallivanting, we would all agree that battling through Cheltenham’s road-rage-inducing traffic paled in comparison to some of Michael Palin’s exploits – but our individual journeys to hear the small screen legend speak was more than worth the effort.

Buy Michael Palin's New Europe from £10 at amazon.co.uk.

On the opening night of this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival, while Alistair Campbell was wooing the crowds with political revelations and Jools Holland talked of tinkling the ivories through his expansive career, fans of fiction were simultaneously treated to an intimate audience with Life of Pi writer Yann Martel.

Arriving on stage with a shy wave of the hand, the curly Canadian author who has sold more than six million copies of his magical realist novel, talked with gusto about the worldwide search to find an illustrator for the new illustrated version of his Man Booker Prize-winning novel, with Martel regaling the crowd with tales of competition entries from all corners of the globe – spanning styles including everything from traditional wood cuts to Manga-style drawings fit for a 21st century graphic novel.

A short slide show revealed the vibrant work of the chosen winner Tomislav Torjanac, with Martel enthusing with an art critic’s eye about the stunning painterly-style of the Croatian artist’s digitally enhanced oil paintings and his attention to detail, adding that ‘Tomislav knew the book better than I did.’

Seated on the edge of the Everyman Theatre’s seats, we were also treated to (what we hoped were) a few insider secrets about the forthcoming big budget movie-version of Life of Pi. Set to be directed by the French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Martel revealed that among other changes to the original novel, the Amelie director will move Pi’s new home from Toronto to Montreal, to suit his love for all thing Francais – and how he predicted turning the novel into a feature film would be a ‘nightmare’.

Another scoop for the fans in the audience was a discussion of Martel’s newest book A 20th century Shirt, an equally odd follow-up to Life of Pi, which will see a monkey and a donkey travelling across a country, ‘a real country, with trees and people’ that is also a shirt ‘with buttonholes and seams’, as a metaphor for the holocaust.

Not content with simply attempting to change the publishing world by invigorating the public’s demand for illustrated adult fiction, Martel said his forthcoming novel would take the form of a flip book – containing both his fictitious novel and a fact-based essay, ‘which the reader will have to decide which to read first’.

The unique and thought-provoking end of day one of the Cheltenham Literary Festival, courtesy of Yann Martel, has set a high standard for guests over the next nine days to compete with, and we cannot wait to see how the rest of the festival will unfold.

Buy the new Life of Pi: The Illustrated Edition by Yann Martel and Tomislav Torjanac from £12.50 at amazon.co.uk.

SoGlos.com
October 2007