Words By The Water At Theatre By The Lake Keswick Review

DISCLOSURE – TICKETS TO SEE THE SHOW WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER AND GUEST FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW

Reviewed by Jo Hardy

Words by the Water is described as a ‘Festival of Words and Ideas’, it brings together writers from all over the country in a 5 day event of author talks, interviews and workshops, run in partnership with “Bookends” an independent book shop that has been trading in Keswick for over 30 years, the whole event is directed by Leah Varnell, this year marks 25 years since it first started.

Looking through the program I was amazed at how much was packed into the five days, each day there are between 8 and 10 talks and one or two workshops, there really is something for everyone here, the first event of the day starts at 10.30 and there are things running throughout the day until the final one starting at 7.30 so you could spend the whole day here.

The program includes some high profile speakers such as Lee Child, Penny Mordaunt, Prue Leith also well know locals like Sarah Hall and MW Craven.

Out of the huge array of events I chose to go to the talk by Brian Bilston who with over 500,000 followers has been described as Twitters unofficial poet laureate, he’s not longer on twitter as he didn’t like what it had turned into but he did have a poem about Elon Musk one of the lines was “ he’s a billionaire in a mid-life crisis, if truth be told he’s not the nicest”, it was very funny.

I have only recently started to follow him on Facebook but after reading just one of his poems I knew he was the poet for me. Brian’s poems are a mixture of humour and emotion often focusing on modern day life, there were many times he had the audience laughing out loud and it was easy to see why the show was a sell out.

Brian read some of the poems out of his latest book ”How to lay an egg inside a horse” the book is due out on 16th April and is on preorder now.

Listening to a poet read his own poems is very special you are hearing them exactly as they were written and meant to be heard all the gaps and pause’s perfectly placed.

Brian will be appearing at some literature festivals in the summer and starts a UK tour in September.

In the interval I was able to view some very dramatic paintings by local artist Julian Cooper who is renowned for his rugged landscapes of the area, Julian is also taking part in the festival events being interviewed by Marie Elsa Bragg and his new book “The art of Julian Cooper” has just been published.

Words by the Water festival runs from 11th March to 15th March with events running throughout the day and evening some talks are free others priced at £13 or £16 the workshops are priced between £12 and £25.

Tickets can be booked on the theatre website and the full program can also be viewed on here
theatrebythelake.com .

Rating: 5/5

https://www.theatrebythelake.com/festival/words-by-the-water-literature-festival-cumbria