Fine line-up at forthcoming Chichester Speakers Festival 2019

Festival manager Marc Rattray is delighted with the line-up he has been able to put together, drawing on three and a half years of staging the event in Chichester and drawing on the contacts he has made through staging similar events in Winchester and Lewes.

“We have established something. I end up writing to a lot of people and I don’t really know what the rate is of people saying yes, but I choose people that I think will be interesting and then I put together a programme that I hope will work.

“I certainly try to make it varied,” says Marc who, for instance, would avoid putting two economists on the same day and perhaps might consider ending the day with a comedian: “It is a question of balance. For the people that are really well known, I would try to find a time when they will get a lot of people.”

This year’s programme is:

Fri, Nov 29, 10.30 John Hemming, former director of the Royal Geographical Society, tells of the Villas Boas brothers.

Fri, Nov 29, 12.00 Linda Yueh, Oxford academic and former BBC Chief Business Correspondent, explains how the great economists can help us today.

Fri, Nov 29, 13.30 Bishop Richard Harries, former Bishop of Oxford for19 years, describes the struggles and joy many of the great writers had as a result of their faith.

Fri, Nov 29, 15.00 Lord Baker of Dorking, former Cabinet Minister of Margaret Thatcher and John Major’s governments, illustrates the seven deadly sins through art, history and politics.

Fri, Nov 29, 16.30 Lynn Truss, writer talks about her comic crime series set in Brighton in 1957 – a place of milk bars, rock-and-roll, sun-burn and enormous amounts of unsolved crime.

Fri, Nov 29, 18.00 Sir Robin Knox Johnson, the first man to complete a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the world by sailing boat which he repeated aged 68 in 2007, talks about his life and extraordinary feats.

Fri, Nov 29, 19.30 Tim Bouverie, best-selling historian and former Channel 4 News journalist, gives a new history of the years of the indecision that enabled Nazi domination of Europe.

Sat, Nov 30, 9.45 Vicky Pryce, the government’s former economics chief, argues that the free market as we know it cannot produce gender equality.

Sat, Nov 30, 11.15 Guy Leschziner, leader of the Sleep Disorder Centre at St Guys Hospital and BBC 4 presenter on mysteries of sleep, explains the science behind nightmares and sleep walking.

Sat, Nov 30, 12.45 Denis MacShane, former Minister for Europe, explains how a `Brexiternity’ of negotiations and internal political wrangling in Britain lies ahead for the foreseeable future.

Sat, Nov 30, 14.15 Andrew Monaghan, director of Research on Russia and Security at Oxford University, explains how to deal with the challenges that Russia poses to the West.

Sat, Nov 30, 15.45 Jonathan Fenby, former editor of the Observer, explains how 1947-8 were the pivotal years that shaped the world we know today.

Sat, Nov 30, 17.15 Theodore Dalrymple, a conservative thinker, former prison psychiatrist and doctor, considers the folly of eminent people’s minds and lives.

Sat, Nov 30, 18.45 Lord David Howell, Chairman of the House of Lords Committee for International Relations & former Minister of State in Northern Ireland, takes a fresh look at the ideas, hopes, lessons and largely unintended consequences of successive generations of political leaders

More details on http://www.chichesterspeakersfestival.com

Calendar Girls at Chichester Festival Theatre - review

University of Chichester's triple threat students in action

Coming up at Chichester Festival Theatre this winter

Find out who's coming to Chichester Festival Theatre this winter