Wigtown goes beyond books

Sep 4 2009 by Sara Bain, Dumfries Standard Friday

THE 11th Stena Line Wigtown Book Festival will take place from September 25 to October 4 and is a key event in the Homecoming Scotland celebrations.

Last year’s festival was an unprecedented success with ticket sales more than doubling and the festival won the Thistle Award for Best Regional Event and Festival 2008.

This year’s programme extends beyond books to encompass music, film, poetry, theatre and the first ever artist residency.

The programme includes appearances from Roddy Doyle, Julia Donaldson, Kenny Logan, Giles Foden, Nick Nairn, John Boyne, Irma Kurtz, Diana Athill, Iain Banks, David Owen, Quintin Jardine, Roberta Taylor, Christopher Brookmyre, Sue Lawrence, Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, William Dalrymple, Louis de Bernières, Robert Crawford and Yasmin Alibhai Brown.

Liz Lochhead will be launching and judging the Wigtown Poetry competition, the largest of its kind in Scotland.

New this year is a unique festival-within-a-festival called Whisky and Words with a programme featuring events about the relationship between whisky and writing.

Most of the programme for Whisky and Words will take place at Bladnoch Distillery. The Whisky and Words festival will be launched with a Burns Supper on Wednesday, September 30 and will run until Saturday, October 3.

Among the events lined up are Roger Hutchinson on the real Whisky Galore; Tom Morton’s Drinking For Scotland; Ian Buxton on the Aeneas MacDonald; the poetry of drink and a whisky-themed creative writing course. Scotland’s top whisky writers such as Charles MacLean, Dave Broom and Gavin Smith will be hosting events.

There will be nips and tastings with most events to combine the “practical” whisky information with the more literary angles.

On Saturday, October 3 there will be a special event to celebrate the launch of the Bladnoch eight-year-old malt, the first since the distillery re-opened.

Films include The Wicker Man, Far North and, of course, Whisky Galore. Theatre includes The Government Inspector, Coming Up For Air and The Jewel O’ Them A’.

There will be music from the TMSA young trad tour, the folk group Nae Goats’s Toe and a staging of Schoenberg’s music-theatre work Pierrot Lunaire.

The poetry programme includes Owen Sheers, Brian McCabe and Brian Johnstone and the popular Panel debates will cover subjects such as Combat Stress, Democracy In Crisis and Why The Ancient Word Still Matters.

Wigtown Festival’s Got Talent is the first ever book festival talent competition.

On Saturday, September 26, the organisers hope to gather together a fantastic line up of entertainment from local residents and visiting writers.

This year also sees the first artists’ residency at the Stena Line Wigtown Book Festival. From October 2 to 4 an installation created by Chris Helson and Sarah Jackets will be on display at The Hut at Reading Lasses and is the result of an exciting collaboration between the book festival and Spring Fling, Scotland’s premiere open studio event.