News Archive

Literary Laugharne

Festival Directors John Williams and Richard Thomas are pleased to announce the first Laugharne Weekend literary festival to be held in Laugharne, West Wales on 31 March – 1 April 2007.

The festival aims to celebrate Welsh literature as well as cult writers and outlaw voices. Laugharne has a unique character which has been of great inspiration to writers and artists. The most notable of these, of course, was Dylan Thomas.  He had a long affinity with Laugharne, spending the last four years of his life in the boathouse which is now a heritage centre dedicated to him. It is an ideal location for the festival to take place combining a fantastic literary heritage with beautiful scenery and a strong local community.

The festival will bring together some unlikely bedfellows from the world of books, cinema, music and even sport in a unique event with performers ranging from former drug smuggler extraordinaire Howard Marks to Rugby’s greatest ever full back JPR Williams rubbing shoulders with actor Keith Allen, New Order’s Peter Hook, Booker short-listed author Patrick McCabe, that true pioneer of Welsh music, Meic Stevens and noted music journalist and writer Nick Kent.

It’s a weekend where you can see a whole range of the finest writers from the Celtic fringes rubbing shoulders with psychedelic rockers, train robbers and Lily Allen’s dad.

A full programme and tickets are available from
http://www.thelaugharneweekend.com/
Weekend tickets are available, priced at £40.00 but these will be limited in number.
Tickets will also be available for individual performances, priced between £5 and £10.
All tickets are available in advance.

Laugharne Village: ‘This timeless, mild, beguiling island of a town with its seven public houses, one chapel in action, one church, one factory, two billiard tables, one St. Bernard (without brandy), one policeman, three rivers, a visiting sea, one Rolls-Royce selling fish and chips, one cannon (cast-iron), one chancellor (flesh and blood), one portreeve, one Danny Raye, and a multitude of mixed birds, here we just are, and there is nowhere like it anywhere at all.’      

Dylan Thomas