Book below for events coming up at Shute Festival
12 July: Concert with Hugo Haag & Ivelina Krasteva
Hugo Haag (viola) & Ivelina Krasteva (piano)
Saturday 12 July 7:30 PM
St Michael's Church, Colyton EX24 6JS
Doors open at 7:00 PM; there will be an interval with refreshments
Children 16 and under are FREE and do not need a ticket
J S Bach - Cello Suite No. 2
Z Kodály - Adagio for Viola and Piano
R Schumann - Fantasiestücke
O Messiaen - Selected Preludes
J S Bach - Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Keyboard No. 1 in G Major
J Brahms - Sonata for Viola and Piano Op. 120 No. 2 in E flat major
Tickets are non-refundable and cannot be exchanged or resold. You do not need to bring a physical proof of purchase to the concert. Your name will be on a list at the door.
25 Sept, 10.00-12.00 - Walk & Draw: How to Draw a Tree and River - Sketching Walk Along the Lym
Join local artist and author Alex Boon for a sketching walk along the River Lym to celebrate his recent books "How to Draw a River" and "How to Draw a Tree", published this summer by David & Charles, Exeter. In this 2-hour walking and drawing session, we will cover some basics of drawing both trees and moving water and gather observations to get you started on your very own nature journal. This class will be beginner-friendly and encouraging for all levels. All materials will be included. Copies of the books will be available for sale after the event.
Alex Boon is an artist, author and nature journaling educator. He studied environmental science to PhD level before deciding to leave academia and move to Devon. He spends his days wandering the wild places, documenting nature in words and sketches and sharing what he finds on YouTube, Instagram and with his Nature Journaling Circle community. His greatest joy is inspiring other people to get into nature and helping them to explore their creativity.
25 Sept, 17.00 - Screening of Givery Takery with film maker & journalist Lisa Clifford
Givery Takery is a series of short films about a quirky online community dedicated to rehoming unwanted items — uncovering the generosity, humour and unexpected relationships that emerge when people give things away for free.
Its writer and director, Lisa Clifford, is a journalist, filmmaker and media trainer who’s spent her career telling stories from some of the world’s more complicated places. She has written for the Financial Times, worked with NGOs, and run journalism workshops everywhere from South Sudan to Somalia. Whether it’s editing research reports or making short films, she loves stories that connect people and make us think.
This event is in association with Turn Lyme Green - admission free, with donations to Turn Lyme Green.
26 Sept, 10.00 - Louisa Adjoa Parker in conversation with Flora Cruft
Louisa Adjoa Parker is an RSA Fellow and writer of English-Ghanaian heritage, based in the Southwest. Her work has been widely published, and she is author of four poetry collections, including Salt-Sweat and Tears (Cinnamon Press), How To Wear a Skin (Indigo Dreams), and She Can Still Sing (Flipped Eye), as well as a short story collection Stay with me (Colenso Books). She has been highly commended by the Forward Prize; twice shortlisted by the Bridport Prize; won the US Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing; and her poem, ‘Kindness’, was commended by the National Poetry Competition. Her memoir of life as a mixed heritage teenager in the Devon is forthcoming with Little Toller Books.
Louisa has also written books, exhibitions and essays on ethnically diverse history in Dorset, and as well as writing, she works as an equity, diversity and inclusion consultant.
Louisa will share some of her lived experience as a woman of English and Ghanaian heritage in Lyme Regis and how her writing supported a deeper sense of connection with self, others, place and nature. She will also share some of her Dorset-inspired poems.
26 Sept, 12.00 - Richard Edmonds: The climate crisis - a geological perspective from the Jurassic Coast
Fossil fuels accumulate over millions of years due to geological processes, the processes so well displayed in the Jurassic Coast, and that is the formation of sedimentary rocks. Oil, gas and coal are the product of the Earth's natural carbon capture and storage but if you Google those very words 'the Earth's natural carbon capture and storage' you will find nothing about how that works. What you will find is a load of stuff about our efforts to capture and store carbon, but they are not even a measurable fraction of what is needed. The Earth is capturing up to a third of our global emissions, many, many times more than we could ever hope to achieve, and there is nothing about it; This knowledge does not appear to exist in the climate crisis discussion. This talk looks at how the Earth captures carbon, the geological processes and timescales, the sheer volumes involved and therefore the scale of the issue that faces us, and how working with the Earth could offer some degree of mitigation. Prepare to be depressed and empowered with the knowledge that everyone on Earth should know; the BIG story, the long game, the geological perspective.
Richard Edmonds is a graduate geologist, first warden of the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre, former Earth Science Manager of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site and now a freelancer on all matters Jurassic Coast related, and fossil guide.
26 Sept, 14.00 - Paddy Magrane & Anna Wickins discuss Both Sides of the Couch
Anna Wickins and Paddy Magrane will be discussing Both Sides of the Couch, their ground-breaking therapeutic memoir which examines, for the first time, the therapy journey through the eyes of both participants. It promises to be a lively conversation about trauma, recovery and hope, as well as the power of talking therapy and the therapeutic relationship.
Anna worked as a consultant engineer for a number of years before taking a career break to raise three children. During this time she discovered a passion for reading, writing and photography and wanted to find a more fulfilling path. She retrained as a counsellor and now works in private practice in Devon, where she lives with her husband, three children, and an energetic border collie.
Paddy trained as an artist in London, and was a professional painter for several years, working in the UK and New York. In 2006, he retrained as a psychotherapist. Paddy is also a novelist and journalist who has written for the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent and Observer. He lives in Devon, close to his two grown-up daughters.
26 Sept, 16.00 - Carry Somers, The Nature of Fashion: A Botanical Story of Our Material Lives
An author, changemaker, and social entrepreneur, Carry Somers' work connects the worlds of fashion, nature, and creativity. She co-founded Fashion Revolution, the world’s largest fashion activism movement, and founded Pachacuti, the world’s first Fair Trade certified company and a pioneer of supply chain transparency. Her work has influenced industries worldwide, from championing artisans to investigating microfibre pollution to exploring the future of plant fibres and dyes as a Churchill Fellow. Her book The Nature of Fashion (Chelsea Green, September 25) explores the entwined histories of plants and textiles, uncovering the threads that have shaped our world and the choices defining our material future.
Carry will be in conversation with Bijan Omrani.
27 Sept, 10.00 - Gwyneth Lewis: Nightshade Mother and First Rain in Paradise
Gwyneth Lewis, Wales’s first National Poet, was emotionally abused by her coercive mother. In Nightshade Mother: A Disentangling, she outlines in prose the nature and effect of the abuse on her. Refusing to stay in shame and chronic illness, her sixth collection of poems in English, First Rain in Paradise, shows how to move on from trauma and into reliable joy. Gwyneth’s humour and insight prove that resilience can win and that despair can change.
Gwyneth wrote the words in six-foot-high letters on the front of the Wales Millennium Centre and was awarded an MBE for services to literature and mental health. She’s a freelance writer and teacher and lives in Cardiff
27 Sept, 12.00 - Horatio Clare on We Came By Sea: Stories of a Greater Britain
We Came by Sea is an untold story of the small boats crisis, a story which shows the best of us. It is the story of the volunteers
who help thousands of refugees in Calais, of the lifeboat crews mounting one of the great search and rescue operations of all
time, of an unrecognised, uncelebrated, all but unknown Britain which is giving its all to help the vulnerable and desperate. It is
a journey through an unexamined nation, a nation which is as truly great and good as the people in the dinghies believe
Britain to be. It is not the story we have been told, and it is a true story.
Biog.
Horatio Clare is a writer and broadcaster. His acclaimed memoirs, travel and children’s books include Running for the Hills (Somerset Maugham Award), A Single Swallow, Down to the Sea in Ships (Stanford Dolman Award), and Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot (Branford Boase Award), and Heavy Light. His book Your Journey Your Way – the recovery guide to mental health, is a Sunday Times self-help book of the year 2024. Horatio presents ‘Is Psychiatry Working?’ on BBC Radio 4 and writes regularly for the international press. His new book, We Came By Sea: stories of a greater Britain tells the unreported side of the story of the small boat crisis. Horatio currently delivers training to NHS intervention teams, lectures in non-fiction at the University of Manchester, and lives with his family in West Yorkshire
27 Sept, 14.00 - Jane Robinson on Trailblazer: the extraordinary life and work of Barbara Leith Smith Bodichon
Victorian painter Barbara Bodichon was responsible for the development of feminism in Britain. She campaigned for equal opportunity in the workplace, the law, the polling booth, at home, and in the world beyond the kitchen or the drawing-room; she co-founded the first university college for women in Britain (Girton) and the first women’s suffrage society. She was also that rare bird, a successful professional female artist. Cheerful, loving and beloved, she’s a very modern heroine.
Jane Robinson is an acclaimed social historian, focusing on women pioneers. Her 13 books include the best-selling Bluestockings, the story of the first women to access higher education in Britain, and major biographies of nurse Mary Seacole, social reformer and artist Barbara Bodichon, and the inspirational humanitarian Josephine Butler. She is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical and Royal Geographical Societies, a Hawthornden Fellow, a writing mentor, and a Senior Associate of Somerville College, Oxford.
27 Sept, 16.00 - Philip Marsden on Under a Metal Sky
Weaving ecology, mysticism and history, Philip Marsden journeys through the minerals that have shaped our species, offering a fresh perspective on our ever-evolving relationship with the natural world. From ochre’s role in the earliest art to the metals that fuelled industry and empire, from alchemists to gold prospectors, Marie Curie to Goethe, Under a Metal Sky explores how using the earth’s materials has meant both benefit and peril, and opened up the imagination in some surprising ways.
Philip Marsden is the award-winning author of a number of books of history, travel and fiction, including The Summer Isles: a Voyage of the Imagination, Rising Ground and The Bronski House. His work has been translated into more than fifteen languages and he lives in Cornwall with his wife and a number of boats.
28 Sept, 10.00, Sophie Pavelle on To Have or To Hold
What can nature teach us about living together? Investigating eight symbiotic relationships trying to survive the climate and biodiversity crises, Sophie Pavelle explains why it has never been more vital for us to understand symbiosis. Symbiotic relationships regulate ecosystems, strengthen resilience and bind pivotal connections.
Species living together in symbiosis is no accident – these dynamics evolved. Species form and sever alliances everywhere, from deep within temperate rainforests to the open ocean, quiet tidal pools or chalk grasslands, and nature thrives on relationships as glamorous as they are grotesque and as bizarre as they are engrossing.
In To Have or To Hold, Sophie relishes the interconnectedness between species and celebrates the relationships that underpin natural environments. Low-carbon travelling around the British Isles, she presents nature's frauds, fortune-tellers, misfits and cheaters.
Sophie Pavelle is a US-born and UK-based science communicator. She worked for Beaver Trust and presented their award-winning documentary Beavers Without Borders. She is an Ambassador for The Wildlife Trusts and sat on the RSPB England Advisory Committee. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, National Geographic Traveller, New Scientist, The Independent and BBC magazines. Her first book, Forget Me Not, was widely praised for encouraging action against climate change and biodiversity loss.