What’s on at Charleston

Learn the art of block printing with Molly Mahon.

The perfect way to immerse yourself in a deeper understanding of the book.

Programme announced February 2019. Join as a Friend for priority booking    

This ticket includes entry to all four events on the opening day of the 2019 Charleston Festival.

Former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion’s new collection explores his mother’s death following a riding accident. In conversation with Kate Kellaway, Observer Poetry Editor.

Gina Miller discusses her successful campaign to prevent the government from triggering Article 50 without parliamentary approval with Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP.

Social historian Virginia Nicholson and broadcaster Joan Bakewell discuss whether the ’60s were genuinely liberating for women.

Jeanette Winterson introduces her on-the-pulse re-working of Mary Shelley’s classic novel.

This ticket includes entry to all four events on the 2nd day of the 2019 Charleston Festival.

The BBC’s Kamal Ahmed re-visits growing up as a mixed-race child in 1970s Britain with journalist Arifa Akbar.

Peter Blake discusses his work, including his iconic album cover for The Beatles, with art critic Martin Gayford.

Mark Urban recounts Sergei Skripal’s double agent career and explores current tensions between Russia and the West.

Alan Bennett’s medley from his inimitable plays, prose and Diaries. Expect to be delighted by his acerbic wit.

This ticket includes entry to all four events on the 3rd day of the 2019 Charleston Festival.

Angela Steidele’s true story of Gentleman Jack and Andrea Lawlor’s novel Paul takes the form of a mortal girl celebrate gender metamorphoses.

Do Thomas Grant’s Court Number One and Helena Kennedy’s Eve Was Shamed show the law holding up a mirror to society? In conversation with Alan Moses.

Stephen Farthing and Michael Farthing examine Leonardo’s anatomical drawings while Ben Lewis traces the journey of da Vinci’s famous painting, Salvator Mundi.

Oscar Wilde devotee Simon Callow introduces and reads The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Wilde’s indictment of the penal system.

This ticket includes entry to all four events on the fourth day of the 2019 Charleston Festival.

Lionel Shriver proposes and John Mullan opposes the motion: ‘There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book’. William Nicholson chairs.

Melvyn Bragg, presenter of In Our Time, talks about his novel, Love Without End, set in both medieval France and the present.

Marking the two anniversaries of John Maynard Keynes’ enormous contribution to world affairs, historian Margaret MacMillan delivers a specially commissioned talk.

Naomi Wolf, provocative author of The Beauty Myth, discusses issues of censorship in relation to the 1857 Obscene Publications Act.

This ticket includes entry to all four events on the fifth day of the 2019 Charleston Festival.