Book up to see the stars (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Book up to see the stars

This October, The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival welcomes a major line-up of world-renowned writers, artists, historians, comedians, thinkers, actors and directors to the Festival stage.

With its most exciting programme yet, Cheltenham truly lives up to its reputation as 'the world capital of Festivals' (The Times).

Highlights of the programme include: * Alan Bennett reading from his new book Untold Stories * David Attenborough talking about his life in broadcasting * Mark Haddon discussing his first book since The Curious Tale of the Dog in the Night- time. * Daniel Libeskind, architect of the 9/11 Ground Zero project, discussing his work * Stephen Fry talking about his new book The Ode Less Travelled * Rory Bremner discussing a life in satire. * Judi Dench performing the poetry of Ted Hughes * Prunella Scales discussing her life on the stage * Bret Easton Ellis flying in from the US to discuss his new novel * Chris Patten discussing the shape of European democracy * PLUS a world exclusive - The Times National Su Duko Championship comes to Cheltenham!

What does it really mean to be free?

This year's Festival explores the idea of freedom in a number of cultural, artistic and political snapshots of current thinking. This keynote series of events tackles the question from a variety of angles: debating the state of democracy today and exploring the limits of personal freedoms and the nature of happiness.

Africa 2005

As this year sees the world's attention focused on Africa, the festival discusses the issues in a debate including Clare Short and Jon Snow and celebrate African and Black British writing with a weekend of events featuring Chimamanda Adichie, Binyavanga Wainaina, Bernadine Evaristo, Ekow Eshun, Diana Evans and Kwame Kwei-Armah.

Drama

The second weekend of the festival sees a special theatre-related programme developed by Dominic Dromgoole, recently appointed as the new Director of The Globe. The festival also explores the world of art and architecture with events featuring Daniel Liebskind, Don McCullin, Hilary Spurling, Charles Jencks and Charles Nicholl.

Keynote Debates

After the success of 2004's State of the Nation series, the festival tackles some of the biggest global issues asking: Can Guantanamo be justified? And, as the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot approaches, does terrorism actually work?

MultiStory

The festival's new commissioning project - features the world premieres of ten cutting-edge stories performed by authors including Alan Hollinghurst, Patrick Neate, Luke Sutherland and Kamila Shamsie.

This year's two guest directors (one for each weekend) are Dominic Dromgoole and Diran Adebayo. Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of the Oxford Stage Company, is one of the most exciting voices in British theatre and in 2006 takes over as director of The Globe. Diran Adebayo, author of Some Kind of Black, is a prize-winning novelist, journalist and commentator.

Younger festival-goers will be delighted by this year's Book It! programme, with appearances from some of our leading children's writers. Highlights include events with new children's laureate Jacqueline Wilson and Nick Sharratt, The Fast Show's Charlie Higson, Robert Winston and Johnny Ball.

Sarah Smyth, Festival Director, comments:"This year's programme is very exciting indeed - not only because of our ten short story premieres which will be one of my Festival highlights - but also because, in the tradition of Cheltenham, we'll be tackling some of the major issues of the moment in what will be powerful and heated debates."

The festival runs from Friday 7 to Sunday 16 October, 2005. Tickets are available on 01242 227979. To request a brochure call 01242 237377.