FEATURES

Melissa Blease and Stephen Dalton get stuck into the first week of the 62nd Cheltenham Literature Festival

Deciding your itinerary for the opening weekend of the Cheltenham Literature Festival is a bit like playing that game where everybody chooses their ideal dinner party guests. Would Alistair Darling really sit that well alongside Michael Portillo? Or should we try to fit Joanna Lumley in between the two, just to keep things smooth? Then we could add Caitlin Moran (pictured) for a bit of cheeky spark, Jarvis Cocker for sardonic quips, Kirsty Lang to keep the conversation on track, and Pamela Stephenson-Connolly to explain what’s really going on – with John Sergeant’s 'Strictly...' steps, perhaps?

On a personal note, the Festival’s opening day last Friday left the Venue review team feeling confident that Tony Benn was the only dinner guest anyone would ever need. Erudite, fascinating, funny, inspirational and thought-provoking, Mr Benn caused us to fall deep in leftie love all over again. But boy, did he have a lot of competition.

Sedate and well-heeled but sprinkled with brainy glamour, Cheltenham lives up to its reputation as one of the most prestigious literary events in the world – think Glastonbury meets Glyndebourne. Spread across two large leafy squares in the heart of this handsome Georgian city, Friday’s opening banquet of highbrow banter included the author David Lodge in conversation with academic and literary critic John Sutherland. This was billed as a discussion about the qualities which make for a memorable fictional characters, but turned out to be a rather rambling plug for Sutherland’s new book ‘Lives of the Novelists’. So keynote speakers don’t read the Festival programme? Funny that.

The hour-long session was largely taken up by Sutherland reading out the entry he wrote for Lodge, which was then corrected and augmented by the author himself. Fortunately, what might easily have turned into a sycophantic mutual admiration session was actually, in the hands of two such scholarly wordsmiths, a delightful game of verbal ping-pong resulting in a one-all draw.

Far more satisfyingly divisive in terms of subject matter was the ‘Postmodernism: Style and Subversion’ event, hosted and illustrated by Jane Pavitt and Glenn Adamson, curators of the current V&A exhibition of the same name. Adamson - think Moby meets Douglas Coupland - took the audience on a mini-tour of the exhibition’s highlights. Grace Jones, 'Bladerunner', Memphis furniture, Ron Arud, Thierry Mugler - you know, all that edgy, angular, multi-layered meta-stuff. Meanwhile, Pavitt - head of the RCA’s History of Design Programme and Dean of the School of Humanities – steered the ensuing discussion about what Postmodernism is, where it began and what it means today. Did we come away enlightened? Arguably, but in a complex and confused way. How very Postmodern... or should that be Post-Postmodern?

Saturday dawned, and the festival revved up yet another eminently tasteful notch as a distinctly weekendish vibe added a skittish, playful edge to the many marquees dotted around the accessible site. We arrived at the party just in time to revel in the delightful company of the wonderfully witty, annoyingly talented Caitlin Moran, who earned huge laughs with her spiky and irreverent observations on parenthood, abortion, masturbation and gender roles. Anybody in danger of thinking they’ve lost the feminist plot needs to read Moran’s new book ‘How To Be A Woman’ right now.

There was also time on Saturday to sample the fringe events around the mainstream melee: from an uplifting hip-hop Shakespeare performance at the Sky Arts tent to the most bullying behaviour inflicted on competitive wordsmiths since Bryon publicly derided Keats at the UK All Stars impromptu poetry slam. In between we also managed to squeeze in Pieminister pies, a quick browse along the upmarket shopping parades nearby and celeb sightings at every turn: Sebastian Faulks, Anne Rice, Robert Peston and Jonathan Dimbleby.

Back to the official programme again to see Sarah Churchwell, Mohammed Hanif and Andy McNab discuss Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22’, currently celebrating its 50th anniversary and often cited as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. This debate was perhaps never going to be McNab’s finest hour - put any mere mortal on a platform with the Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the University of East Anglia, plus an award-winning writer and journalist, and it’s clear who would dominate the conversation. As the event segued into a discussion around the defining factors of the Great American Novel, the author of 'Bravo Two Zero' had the good grace to hold up his hands in defeat: “I’ve gotta let you guys run with this one”, he smiled “you’re out of my comfort zone”. For an SAS-trained soldier, that’s quite an admission.

Mixing things up yet again, we dashed back to the large marquee for a Q&A session with comedian and TV host Frank Skinner, a former columnist for festival sponsor The Times. Promoting his latest collection of journalistic pieces, ‘Dispatches From the Sofa’, the Birmingham-born comic proved to be a master of deadpan wit as he addressed questions about his devout Catholic faith, accusations of sexism and the limits of good taste in comedy. Picking up on one of his earlier quips about life in sleepy Cheltenham, one waggish woman in the crowd concluded the session by publicly inviting Skinner to a swingers party afterwards. Like all skilled comedians, he ended with a big laugh.

Well on his way to becoming a national treasure in the Tony Benn mould, Britpop survivor turned man of letters Jarvis Cocker is used to headlining festivals by now, filling Cheltenham’s cavernous Victorian town hall with adoring fans on Saturday night. In conversation with Radio 4’s John Wilson, the Pulp singer discussed his new lyric anthology ‘Mother, Brother, Lover’ with typically dry humour. However, his musings on the songwriter’s art felt a little sketchy after the fecund wit and fruity wisdom of the preceding 48 hours. Of course, that’s the beauty of Cheltenham with its embarrassment of literary riches. Besides, even national treasures have a bad night sometimes.

THE CHELTENHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL RUNS UNTIL 16 OCT, 2011. FFI: WWW.CHELTENHAMFESTIVALS.COM

Copyright Melissa Blease and Stephen Dalton 2011