Rob Delaney is the BAFTA-winning and Emmy-nominated co-creator and co-star of the Channel 4 sitcom Catastrophe. He is the author of the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling memoir, A Heart that Works. Most recently he’s appeared in the popular show Dying for Sex and in Deadpool & Wolverine. Rob was nominated for an Primetime Emmy alongside his co-creator Sharon Horgan for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series in 2016. In 2018 Catastrophe was nominated for a BAFTA TV award. Rob will be in conversation with Kate Slotover of the Book Club Review podcast.

Dame Marina Warner’s numerous books, stories and essays explore myth, storytelling, history and society. In Sanctuary she investigates ideas of refuge, hospitality and belonging, and how storytelling helps people endure and understand crisis. Sanctuary was written alongside the project Stories in Transit, which brings young refugees together with artists, writers and musicians in the UK and Sicily. The recipient of dozens of honours and awards, Marina Warner was the second woman to deliver a Reith Lecture for the BBC and the first female president of the Royal Society of Literature.

She will be discussing the changing concepts of sanctuary with Dr Alex Pryce, Senior Tutor of St Edmund's College, Cambridge.

Conceived as a permanent showcase for the arts and sciences, the Royal Albert Hall has shaped British cultural life for over 150 years. But why was it created, and what did its founders envision? Simona Valeriani explores its design, construction, and legacy, uncovering the political, social, and technological forces—and the celebrated figures and unsung contributors—behind this iconic symbol of national identity.

For nearly 200 years Barnsbury has been home to and inspiration for writers. In this new 90-minute guided walk you'll hear about the haunts of these poets, playwrights and authors, from Dickens and Wilde to Caryl Churchill and Robert Harris. Discover the places featured in their writing, from Pentonville prison and the Caledonian Road, to the elegant squares of Barnsbury.

Vicky Spratt is an award-winning journalist, author, and housing-rights advocate. She has been twice shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and her first book, Tenants, was a Financial Times book of the year. She will be in conversation with architecture critic Rowan Moore about her upcoming book We Were Promised The Moon.

Rowan Moore is architecture critic for the Observer newspaper, as well as the author of several books on architecture and urban development, including Property: the Myth that Built the World.

*New* Our patron, Chris Smith (Lord Smith of Finsbury, Chancellor of Cambridge University) formally opens the Festival at the start of this event. Followed by a heraldic trumpet fanfare. Not to be missed!

World-famous pianist Sir Stephen Hough is also a writer and composer. He has been named by The Economist as one of 'Twenty Living Polymaths'. In his frank and engrossing memoir, Enough, he recounts his unlikely journey from an unmusical Cheshire home to the stage of Carnegie Hall by the age of 21. He candidly shares his teenage nervous breakdown, struggles with sexuality and religion, unconventional parents, and the teachers who inspired and discouraged him. 

In the immediate aftermath of WWII, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger combined a headstrong young woman, a dashing naval officer, and the wild Scottish landscape to create a film designed to transport an audience exhausted by war, food rationing and housing shortage.  It was a cinematic masterpiece and one of the 20th century’s most beguiling films.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Pressburger's grandsons and film-making heirs Kevin and Andrew Macdonald and chaired by Jamie Muir. Kevin's Oscar and award-winning films include One Day in September, Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void. Andrew is producer of Trainspotting (showing on Saturday), 28 Days Later, Shallow Grave, Ex Machina, Sunshine on Leith and founder of DNA films. Jamie worked with Martin Scorsese on new documentary Made in England: the films of Powell and Pressburger.

An extraordinary weekend to see these two iconic films, on the big screen, fully digitally remastered, in the company of two contemporary cinema giants and Pressburger descendants.

Join best selling e-book writer Lis Howell ( The Suzy Spencer Mysteries) to find out why cosy crime has taken off massively in the last 10 years. Publishers Joffe Books (supporting this session) sell thousands of low violence, high mystery crime e-novels every year. New authors, and known names like Simon Brett are achieving huge sales figures. And in the traditional publishing world Swift Press have achieved a signal success with Maureen Paton's 'The Mystery at Rake Hall' with C S Lewis as an unlikely detective. Simon Brett and Maureen Paton join Lis to explore and explain this genre. Simon Brett is a veteran cosy crime writer whose sleuth Charles Paris has been portrayed on BBC Radio 4 for thirty years - the latest reiteration in 2023 with Bill Nighy. Maureen Paton is a star newcomer to the genre whose debut novel made the Times and the Telegraph top crime books of 2025. And if you're an aspiring crime writer, we've also got self publisher Marcus Rowntree to talk you through how to go it alone - if you dare!

Join us, if you love crime with character but without the noir. Readers and writers welcome, but leave your lead piping in the billiard room!

Does money make you happy? Are you a saver or spender… and why? How can changing the way we think about money help us to manage it better? Professor Adrian Furnham shares insights from his lively new book to get to the heart of how we think about money and how it affects our behaviour. Adrian is a renowned organisational psychologist and author of over 100 books. His '50 Psycholoy Ideas You Really Need to Know', explained in concise and accessible language, remains one of the most popular introductions to the subject.