Feature: Cheltenham Literature Festival runs from October 8-17
Published: 7 October, 2010
by GERALD ISAAMAN
DREAMS and Nightmares, perhaps appropriate for today’s problems, is the theme of this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival, which examines gods and monsters, vampires and angels – some with local links.
There is Frankenstein, the creation of Mary Shelley , who was born in Somers Town in 1797, the daughter of the early feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and the wife of the poet, whom she secretly met at her mother’s grave in St Pancras churchyard.
Mary Shelley’s biographer, Hampstead’s Miranda Seymour, one of more than 20 local authors taking part in the festival, will be among those exploring the book behind the monster myth and why Frankenstein still mesmerises us today.
Highgate Cemetery, the last resting place of George Eliot and Karl Marx, which is allegedly stalked by vampires, is also on the agenda, along with Dracula. And they are accompanied by HG Wells’ aliens on Primrose Hill and the Triffids of John Wyndham, who invaded South End Green.
The American author Audrey Niffenegger, whose novel Her Fearful Symmetry was set in the cemetery, will join Catherine Arnold, author of Necropolis, to talk about the Victorian Valhalla, as John Betjeman once described it.
And if you have fears about the more immediate future, then Cheltenham will be offering up Hampstead’s Alastair Campbell, as well as Alistair Darling, Shirley Williams and Peter Mandelson, to reveal their political concerns about David Cameron’s coalition government.
The 10-day festival, which runs from October 8, has more than a fair share of Camden and Islington talent taking part in more than 450 events. Stephen Fry will be there, so too Melvyn Bragg, Martin Amis, Simon Callow, Hilary Spurling, Ion Trewin, historian Michael Wood, TLS editor Peter Stothard and former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion.
Former Cabinet minister Tessa Jowell, who began her career as a Camden councillor and currently lives in Highgate, is taking part in a discussion with BBC radio presenter Eddie Mair on the changing role of women in politics. The big hitters in the popular events will feature Salman Rushdie, Stephen Hawking, Jerry Hall, Dawn French, Harry Hill, Ian Botham, Sue Townsend, Michael Frayn and Michael Parkinson.
• The Chelthenham Literature Festival runs from October 8-17. Box office 0844 576 7979.