BIG LIT: The Stewartry’s very own BOOK Festival packed with a rich feast of literature based events.
April 14th – 17th 2016 in Gatehouse of Fleet
What with Patricia Gallimore aka ‘Pat Archer’ dropping into Cream o’ Galloway for a locally sourced supper and a talk about her favourite books, Forsyte Saga star Karin Fernald performing her one-woman show ‘We fainted alternately on the sofa’ including some farcical, anarchic stories Jane Austen wrote in her teens, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death marked with readings from top actor/broadcaster Peter Marinker of sonnets Shakespeare wrote to his patron and cross-dressing womaniser the Earl of Southampton, a workshop and a reading from award winning author Tom Pow, an introduction to Indian polymath and Nobel Prize Winner Rabindranath Tagore, a much anticipated return visit from actor/singer/songwriter Gerda Stevenson and multi-instrumentalist/composer Kyrre Slind – a sell-out last year – plus a rousing finale from the ever popular Feral Choir – BIG LIT looks set to have established itself as a Festival not to be missed.
This year it offers opportunities for kids to join aunty and her crazy crew of kids and critters on Renita Boyle’s Honk, Rattle Roadshow and engage with another of Bill Barlow’s inventive interactive, installations in The Bakehouse Studio. Adults can hear top harpist Wendy Stewart and poet Kenneth Stephen with a magical interweaving of music and poetry in A Song of the Stones (first broadcast on Radio 3) or rub shoulders with everyone from Burns to Bob Dylan in one of Galloway’s longest running pub sessions. All this and much, much more.
‘Whether you have small children underfoot, are an Archer’s fan, love the combination of music and poetry, are into contemporary writing or writing from other generations and cultures, are interested in installation, book launches or exhibition – there will be something in this year’s BIG LIT programme you can enjoy’. says Chrys Salt MBE, Artistic Director of The Bakehouse and BIG LIT. ‘We have lots of surprises too, so keep your eyes on our website www.biglit.org for extra events.’
Many events are free, others are as cheap as chips. Come and join the BIG LIT Party. Tickets are on sale now and booking has begun.
