Nairn Book & Arts Festival

Following a Fine Art degree at Edinburgh University, Fiona Allardyce studied painting restoration in Rome, specialising in murals.  After restoring medieval wall paintings at Canterbury Cathedral, and advising the National Trust, she joined Historic Scotland as head of structural paintings.  In 2003 HS seconded her to lead the restoration of the magnificent Phoebe Traquair murals in Edinburgh.  Fiona will discuss the commissioning of the murals in the light of social beliefs of the times, and show how restoration brought out interesting and unusual aspects of the paintings.

This homage to hard-boiled detective fiction is a riot and was rewarded with a standing ovation when screened at the Cannes Film Festival.  Robert Downey Jnr is at his bumbling best in this crime caper, written and directed by Shane Black who sold his screenplay of Lethal Weapon to Hollywood at the tender age of 22.  Look out for lots of Raymond Chandler references. Starring Robert Downey Jnr, Michelle Monaghan, Val Kilmer, Corbin Bernsen, Deanna Dozier.  Classification 15, running time 99 minutes.

Sally Hotson, who has a DA in sculpture from Grays School of Art loves showing people how to create sculpture and allowing them to discover what they can achieve.

On this one day course you will carve a low relief design into plaster of paris to make a panel or plaque.  This workshop will allow you to make light and shade and an illusion of depth into a flat surface, learning various carving techniques.  Please bring an idea of your design, overalls and old gloves.

Off the Peg is the community art event in Nairn High Street.  Unframed paintings pegged inside shop windows for all to see and buy.  10% of sales will be given to the Children’s Art Club. 

The exhibition is supported by Nairn Art Society whose Summer exhibition takes place at the Court House from 2nd August.

Event Information (DOC)

Roderick Graham, having joined the BBC, and transferring to BBCTV at the start of BBC2, enjoyed a long, successful and varied career as a director and producer, winning two Emmy awards. He was subsequently appointed as first Head of Drama for BBC Scotland.  He returned to London to direct several well known TV series, and write a number of drama-documentaries, radio plays and adaptations.  Returning to Edinburgh, he has written biographies of some famous Scots:  John Knox, David Hume and Mary Queen of Scots. Roderick Graham will talk about his latest book, (the first ever biography of Robert Adam, the pre-eminent architect of his day), Arbiter of Elegance, a Biography of Robert Adam.

Chaired by Robert Livingston, Director of Hi-Arts

We are delighted to have a return visit from Carol Ann Duffy. Appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, she became the first woman and the first Scot to hold this position.  Prolific and celebrated author of poems, stage and radio plays, and books for children, her work is studied widely in schools. Carol Ann is a Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.  She has received many awards, including the T S Eliot Prize for Literature, an OBE and a CBE, and her work as Poet Laureate has done much to raise the profile of poetry throughout the country.

Primary School children in the Nairn area will also have a chance to hear Carol Ann Duffy during the afternoon.  She loves working with children, and at this event she will be with John Sampson, an acclaimed Scottish actor and musician who plays an amazing array of recorders, crumhorns, shepherds pipes and whistles.
Tickets for this children’s event will not be available to the public.

Christopher Brookmyre is a best-selling Scottish satirical novelist whose books mix comedy, politics, social comment and action with a strong, fast-paced narrative.  He has been referred to as a Tartan Noir author, and his novels have received numerous awards including the Critics First Blood Award for Best First Crime Novel of the Year, the Sherlock Award for Best Comic Detective (2000) and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction (2006).  He will talk about and give readings from his most recent novel, Pandaemonium, which was published in 2009.

The Nairn Camera Club will exhibit entries for their competition, which has three categories: Under 12 (or attending Primary) 12 – 18 and Over 18’s.  The competition which is free to enter and open to all allows a choice of subject and either colour or black and white for the photographs.

Download Competition Poster
Download Entry Form

This is local prize-winning poet Eileen Carney Hulme’s third appearance at the festival. With one poetry collection Stroking The Air published in 2005 and a forthcoming collection The Space Between Rain to be published this year, Eileen will be reading a selection of poems from both books. In previous years she has delighted audiences with poems that encompass the landscape of the heart, exploring physical and spiritual connections with a natural lyrical ability.

Donald MacArthur Ker published a book of short stories Horses, stones, wrecked cars, in 2004 and a book of poetry and photographs The Differences Between Women And Men At Funerals In Lethen Nairnshire  in 2009.  He was born on the Arr Farm, Lethen on the 24th of May, l944 and has always been pleased to share this birthday with Queen Victoria and Bob Dylan but is sorry that they were not lucky enough to also be born in Lethen.

Together they will tell stories and read poems that are love letters, fan mail, tributes to some of their favourite things; places, creatures, relationships, memories, wanderings, bad luck turning into good luck, secondhand boots, angels, intimate spaces, hieroglyphs, old dogs and grasshoppers…