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n Hugh Bonneville n Sheila Hancock n Maggie O’Farrell

n Kit de Waal n George Monbiot

n David Owen Book up early as big names flock to

Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville and celebrated actress Dame Sheila Hancock will join a star-studded line up at this year’s Bridport Literary Festival. The stars from stage and screen will join some of the top names in literature for the 18th Bridport Literary Festival, taking place from November 6 to 12. Award-winning novelists Maggie O’Farrell and Kit de Waal, travel writer Colin Thubron, environmental activist George Monbiot, singer songwriter Polly Harvey and politicians David Owen and Chris Patten will also join in the festival. Also taking part are war correspondent Jeremy Bowen, Today presenter Justin Webb, veteran broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, gardener and novelist Alan Titchmarsh and celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. Festival director Tanya Bruce-Lockhart said: “It’s an exciting programme, fitting for our coming-ofage year. “The team is really looking forward to bringing together these high calibre speakers to Bridport.’ Sponsored by Dorset law firm Kitson & Trotman, the festival will host various events at the town’s Electric Palace, The Bull Hotel, Bridport Library, The Sir John Colfox Academy and The Book Shop in South Street as well as at Sladers Yard in West Bay and The Tithe Barn at Symondsbury.

n Melvyn Bragg n Alan Titchmarch n PJ Harvey

n Jeremy Bowen n Justin Webb

n Joanna Quinn town’s popular literary extravaganza

The highlights of this year’s show will include Hugh Bonneville in conversation with Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, Sheila Hancock’s gloriously irreverant memoir and Dorset’s own PJ Harvey on her book Orlam, a ‘poem-sequence of light and shadow’ written in the Dorset dialect. Debut novelist Joanna Quinn, whose Dorsetbased novel The Whalebone Theatre is receiving rave reviews, joins a stellar line up of authors including Kit de Waal, and her childhood memoir of her Irish, Caribbean and British upbringing in 1960s Birmingham, as well as Maggie O’ Farrell on her new novel, the renaissance thriller The Marriage Portrait. Tanya added: “Last year was a bumper year for BridLit. “We were delighted to see so many of our friends and supporters at events which attracted large audiences from all corners of the county and much further afield. “This year we’re hosting an even larger programme which will appeal to all tastes, as well as to children and young people.’

n Information about all the events is now on the bridlit.com website, with priority booking to Friends of Bridport Literary Festival. General bookings are now available from Bridport’s Tourist Information Centre and online at bridlit.com

Splash and flash combined for new

Described as a collaboration of styles, the Paint and Pixels exhibition is being staged this bank holiday weekend at The Salt House in West Bay, showcasing the stunning work from renowned Dorset photographer Neil Barnes and abstract artist Louise Perkins. Louise, who owns Essence Lingerie in Barrack Street, has developed her abstract style over the years to produce the most stunning paintings. She said: “I have developed my artistic flair and passion for colour of the natural world over the last 20 years or so to a level that allows me to share my work via an exhibition. “My subject matter is always a mystery to me until it appears on the canvas, the paintings very much reflect heart and mind and are always surprising in their form.” Neil, whose career as a news photographer has spanned decades, turned his attention to landscape photography in the last ten years and his work captures the beautiful area in which we live, most notably West Bay and the Jurassic Coast. Neil said: “I always say I’m 50 per cent of the way there with our beautiful county, the rest is how I interpret it with the camera. Whilst I will be showing some of my favourite landscapes of West Dorset, I will also be exhibiting some of my more contemporary work which I think people might find unusual and different.”

n The Paint and Pixels exhibition will be staged at The Salt House in West Bay from Thursday, August 25 until Monday, August 29.

ABSTRACT: Some of Louise Perkins’ paintings which are on show at The Salt House

exhibition of paint and photography

SPLASH PHOTOGRAPHY: Neil Barnes has been capturing the beauty of West Dorset for decades