Programme
Sunday
Note: The Festival has two programmes of talks that run in parallel: at the Vinson and Ondaatje Lecture Theatres. Festival-goers may choose talks from either programme.
Coffee is available in the Vinson Building from 09:00
Vinson Lecture Theatre Programme
10:00-11:00
Chaucer: a European Life
MARION TURNER discusses the startling new discoveries presented in her new biography of the author of The Canterbury Tales.
11:30-12:30
Henry VIII & the First Brexit
DAVID STARKEY explores the parallels between Britain’s ‘First Brexit’ – Henry VIII’s break with Rome – and the dilemmas confronting the nation today
Lunch 12:30-14:00
14:00-15:00
The Rise and Rise of the English Country House
JEREMY MUSSON discusses the enduring English obsession with the grand country house, from Tudor palaces to ‘Downton Abbey’
15:30-16:30
Empire and Idyll
CLIVE ASLET surveys the extraordinary career of Sir Edwin Lutyens, designer of the Cenotaph and architect of the British Empire’s grandest buildings
17:00-18:00
Behind the Throne
ADRIAN TINNISWOOD discusses his best-selling history of the Royal Household and its servants — from grand courtiers to ghillies — and ranging from Henry VIII to Queen Elizabeth II
Ondaatje Lecture Theatre, Radcliffe Centre, Programme
10:00-11:00
The Ring of Truth
Sir ROGER SCRUTON strips back the myths and misconceptions to reveal the historical context of Wagner’s great masterpiece, The Ring of the Nibelung
11:30-12:30
Appeasing Hitler
TIM BOUVERIE offers a compelling new account of the roles of Churchill and Chamberlain in the lead-up to the Second World War
Lunch 12:30-14:00
14:00-15:00
Treason and Faith in Elizabethan England
JESSIE CHILDS investigates the collision of loyalties to the Queen and to the Pope against the background of plots, the threat of Mary Queen of Scots, and the Spanish Armada
15:30-16:30
The real Queen Anne
ANNE SOMERSET sifts fact from fiction in presentation of Queen Anne and her relationship with Sarah Churchill, the blackmailing Duchess of Marlborough
17:00-18:00
An Atheist in a Foxhole
TOM HOLLAND explores the apparently contradictory moral worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien and the German painter Otto Dix as they confronted each other at the Battle of the Somme