A-Z of Speakers 2021 – biographies
CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL
4:30-5pm: Poetry Competition Prize Giving
Clare Balding will present the prizes for the 11th Chiswick Book Festival Young People’s Poetry Competition. Supported by ChiswickW4.com.
St Michael & All Angels Church. Admission free, but tickets must be booked online via Festival website. Priority booking for prizewinners and their families.
CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL
5:15pm: Fall Off, Get Back On, Keep Going
Clare Balding talks about her first non- fiction book for children which aims to empower and inspire young people to be unafraid of failure. Age 7+
St Michael & All Angels Church, £5
6:30pm: Alvin Rakoff: I’m Just The Guy Who Says Action
From TV’s Armchair Theatre, the BBC Shakespeare and Z Cars, to notable theatre and big screen productions, the 94-year-old Emmy-winning director (and longtime Chiswick neighbour of Richard Briers) has seen it all.
Speaking to Festival director Torin Douglas about his newly published memoirs, Alvin Rakoff shares memories of working with Laurence Olivier, Peter Sellers and Michael Caine – and giving breaks to Sean Connery and Alan Rickman.
Read more – and hear Alvin Rakoff on Radio 4’s The Film Programme.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Theatre, ArtsEd, 14 Bath Road, £10
Copies of I’m Just The Guy Who Says Action are only available on Amazon.
8pm: Steve Richards: The Prime Ministers We Never Had – Success and failure, from Butler to Corbyn
10 chapters, 11 Prime Ministers We Never Had: Why did they fail to seize the crown when they seemed to be so close?’
Political commentator Steve Richards talks about eleven individuals who never quite made it to Number 10, including RA Butler, Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Michael Heseltine and Jeremy Corbyn.
– “The nearly-but-not-quites of politics are, Richards makes clear, often far more interesting people than the ones who beat them to Downing Street” – Review by Patrick Kidd in The Times
St Michael & All Angels Church, £10