Past event

Wilderness Festival, 2017

Date:
5-6 August 2017

Letters Live travelled to Oxfordshire in 2017 to entertain the crowds at the picturesque Wilderness Festival for the first time. During the first weekend of August, as headliners of the festival’s Talks and Debates programme, Letters Live descended upon the stunning Atrium stage to seduce the audience with, as ever, a cast of readers and letters certain to surprise and delight.

Programme

Saturday, 5th August 2017

 

Amanda Abbington

 
Fortunately, I had my new radio

Mary Grant to A. Walker

 

 

Amanda Abbington and Zawe Ashton

 
Dear Friend

Hermione Gingold to A Friend

 

 

Benedict Cumberbatch

 
I pity you

Roger Taylor to Rolling Stone Magazine

 
The Cat Ranch

Jack Lemmon to Walter Matthau

 
Seat 29E

A Customer to Continental Airlines

 

 

Jonjo O’Neil

 
Thanks a heap Susan

George Harrison to Susan Houghton

 

 

Mark Strong

 
I invented punk

Lester Bangs to East Village Eye

 
The canvas has an idiotic stare

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh

 
I would like to retain ‘fart in your general direction

Mark Foraster to Michael White

 
Not raising hogs

J.B. Lee, Jr. to Ed Foreman

 

 

Tom Hollander

 
P.S. This is my favorite memo ever

Matt Stone to the MPAA

 
If only

Percy Grainger to Karen Holten

 

 

Tom Hollander and Amanda Abbington

 
I am so close behind you

Leonard Cohen to Marianne Ihlen

 

 

Zawe Ashton

 
Your road manager needs a POKE

Anonymous child to Rolling Stones

 
Keep Dreaming

Debbie Harry to her younger self

 
 
 

Sunday, 6th August 2017

 

Amanda Abbington

 
We press you close and kiss you with all our strength

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to thir sons

 

 

Benedict Cumberbatch

 
Our gods are assholes

Iggy Pop to Joshua Berger

 
Life itsef is life

DH Lawrence to Katharine Mansfield

 

 

Benedict Cumberbatch and Louise Brealey

 
Dogs vs. Cats

Letters to the Guardian

 

 

Ian McShane

 
There’s no hope in war

Kurt Vonnegut to the Draft Board

 
We all feel like that now and then

Sir Archibald Clark Kerr to Lord Reginald Pembroke

 
Your type is a dime a dozen

Hunter S. Thompson to Anthony Burgess

 

 

Ian McShane and Russell Brand

 
The mingled souls of wheat and corn

R.G. Ingersoll and Rev. Dr. J.M. Buckley

 

 

Louise Brealey

 
Dear One

Rachel Carson to Dorothy Freeman

 
The most beautiful work of all

Patti Smith to Robert Mapplethorpe

 

 

Russell Brand

 
To my ever-loving wife

Don to His Wife

 

 

Tom Hollander

 
I have had my eye on you

Simon Fallowfield to Mary Foster

 
The grand bi-polar old Duke of York

Mark Piggott to Private Eye Magazine

 
This would make him mine

John Steinbeck to Marilyn Monroe

 

 

Tony Robinson

 
Torturing the Saxophone

Robert Crumb to Mats Gustafson

 
Ye have made me such a pisser

Lord Edmund Howard to Lady Lisle

 
Your miserable friend

Lewis Carroll to Annie Rogers

 

 

Zawe Ashton

 
I wanted to be a nun or a movie star

Madonna to Stephen Lewick

 
Straighten up and fly right, Banky!

Billie Holliday to Tallulah Bankhead