Laughter Craft Comedy are launching a brand new night in Marlborough We are bringing a line up full of TV and Award Winning Comedians plus a licensed bar! Zoe Lyons - Live at the Apollo, Radio 4 Ali Woods - ITV and Social Media Sensation Matt Bragg - Ricky Gervais Arena Support Plus Laughter Craft Comedy's own Jonathan Elston - 'A comic with incredible talent" the Guardian Line up subject to change, Seating will be unreserved theatre style.

Get ready for an action-packed evening that the whole family can enjoy – LDN Wrestling is coming to town! This thrilling event is suitable for all ages, bringing the excitement of live wrestling to your doorstep.  With heart-pounding matches, incredible athleticism, and unforgettable moments, it’s the perfect way to spend a night out with family and friends.  The event will run for two hours, including a 20-minute break, giving you plenty of time to grab snacks, stretch your legs, and chat with fellow wrestling fans. Whether you’re a lifelong fan or new to the sport, LDN Wrestling promises an experience that will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.  We’re also offering some fantastic ticket options to make sure everyone can join in on the fun!

A-level students from St Johns Marlborough battle it out in front of a public audience. Their topic: Is it ever morally right to censor literature?

John Suchet is a man of many parts: much-garlanded foreign news reporter; the face of ITN news; the voice of Classic FMs morning show; tireless charity campaigner; author. One strand runs through his multi-faceted life a love of Ludwig van Beethoven and his music. In this, his eighth book on the great composer, Suchet melds his own life with that of his subject part travelogue, part biography, part memoir and reveals how Beethovens journey affected his own. Suchet takes us to Bonn, where Beethoven spent his early years, and to Vienna, where some truly surprising, and not altogether welcome, discoveries are made. For, as Suchet explains, Its not always easy to reconcile the genius with the deeply flawed individual. In Search of Beethoven also sheds new light on Beethovens health and hearing loss, and offers fresh insights into the composers heritage and his interactions with Mozart, who is alleged to have said of Beethoven Mark that young man, he will make a name for himself in the world.

For 15 years, Valentine Low was The Times distinguished royal correspondent, covering everything from William and Kates marriage to the kings coronation. In 2021, he broke the story of bullying allegations made by staff against Meghan Markle, just days before she and Harry were interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. He is now drawing on his impeccable political and royal contacts to write authoritative books about the royal family. In 2022, Courtiers explored the hidden power behind the throne. In his new book, Power and the Palace, Low examines how the relationship between Britains sovereign and the countrys political leadership has significantly changed over the past 200 years. As recently as the first half of the 20th century, our sovereigns were politically active in ways that would be seen as unacceptable today. These days, the king is deemed to be above politics. Low charts how the monarchy has gradually ceded power over the years. More controversially, he shines a light on how it has done everything in its power to secure its own finances; for most of the last century, for example, it didnt pay any income tax. Full of startling revelations, the book promises to rewrite our understanding of the unique bond between our monarchy and His Majestys Government.

For some, the trick was simply to learn to smile more (back home, mirth was in short supply). Others went to greater, more painful lengths to blend in: one man got himself circumcised to pose as a Jew. Why? Because they were Russian spies. Their job was to spend years integrating into the life and customs of their adopted Western country so as to learn its secrets and report back to Moscow. But, as Shaun Walker reveals in The Illegals, a fascinating account of 100 years of deep-cover espionage, while some sleepers did achieve success, particularly in the interwar years, most did not. Either they fell foul of their own paranoia one illegal in Britain became convinced MI5 was bugging his shirt buttons or of the paranoia of the Kremlin, which had them shot or sent to the Gulag on their return home. A former Moscow correspondent for The Guardian, Walker has spent years delving into archives and memoirs and interviewing retired illegals to elicit a wealth of extraordinary material, much of it never before recorded. He has lifted the lid on a very Russian sort of subterfuge.

Lauded as one of the greatest writers of our time (The Guardian), admired as an English stylist without obvious living equal (The Sunday Times) and recently knighted for services to literature, Sir Alan Hollinghurst arrives in Marlborough trailing clouds of glory. Winner of the Booker Prize in 2004 for The Line of Beauty, he was longlisted for The Strangers Child in 2011 and won the Somerset Maugham and the Stonewall Book Awards for The Swimming-Pool Library in 1989, plus the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Folding Star in 1994. Principally known as a novelist, Hollinghurst is also a poet, short-story writer, editor and translator. His seventh novel, Our Evenings, is a book of quiet power and emotional weight. It tells the story of Dave Win, an Anglo-Burmese actor, over six decades from 1962 to 2020, exploring questions of race, class, sexuality and origins. An instant bestseller, the reviews were ecstatic. Luxuriously immersive, subtle and elegiac [Our Evenings] traces the arc of a life to paint a picture of modern Britain and is shot through with love, longing and delicious comedy, declared The Bookseller. But perhaps the most telling praise came from novelist Emma Donaghue: I never wanted it to end.

Described by Nigella Lawson as a breathtaking achievement, Olia Hercules memoir Strong Roots is the story of four generations of her family through times of war, peace, invasion and exile. Strong Roots is an ode to the land, to resilience and determination, to family stories and recipes handed down through the generations, and to ideas of home and belonging. Tracing the ebb and flow, both voluntary and forced, of people across Ukraine and the surrounding regions in the 20th and 21st centuries, Hercules memoir brims with love, grief and hope and is a testament to how much the human spirit can endure. Hercules was born in Kakhovka, in the south of Ukraine. She trained at Leiths School of Food and Wine and worked as a chef de partie in restaurants, including Ottolenghi, and as a recipe developer. Her first book, Mamushka, won the Fortnum & Mason Award for best debut cookbook, and was followed by Kaukasis, Summer Kitchens and Home Food. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with her friend Alissa Timoshkina she co-founded #CookForUkraine, which has raised more than 2 million to date.

In A Wilder Way, trained horticulturalist and regenerative grower Poppy Okotcha reflects on her ever-changing Devon garden, weaving stories from her own life and folktales from her English and Nigerian heritage into a month-by-month exploration of the joys and challenges of the gardening year. Okotcha gives practical advice on gardening tasks from making compost and worm tea, to producing flowers, fruits and vegetables, to foraging and creating delicious seasonal recipes and contemplates what gardening can bring us: the mundane, the magical, the inspiring. Both memoir and practical guide, A Wilder Way celebrates the joys that even the smallest patch of ground can provide, the pleasures of engaging with the natural world, and how important this is for our emotional and physical well-being. Whatever the size or type of growing space, A Wilder Way will appeal to both experienced and novice gardeners. Former St Johns Marlborough student Okotcha is passionate about inspiring engagement with and connection to the natural world. She has been featured on BBC2s Gardeners World and is a regular contributor to the RHS podcast.

I suppose every home has its secrets. But perhaps theirs had more than most. So muses Helen Hansford, the heroine of Shy Creatures. Secrets, and those terribly British qualities shame, silence, avoidance of unpleasantness lie at the heart of Clare Chambers 10th novel, the follow-up to her 2020 hit Small Pleasures. In a 1960s South London suburb, the Tappings, an ever-decreasing number of sisters living in ever-more straitened circumstances, have hidden their nephew from the world for decades. An uncharacteristic disturbance at the house leads to both him and the last elderly aunt being taken to the local psychiatric hospital. Here, art therapist Helen discovers the man, William, to be a talented artist and determines to uncover his story. Inspired by a 1950s news cutting of the Hidden Man, Chambers imagines both a past and a more hopeful future for William. With irony and acuity, she depicts repressed lives of quiet desperation and unexpected passion for whom the Sixties are definitely not swinging. But humour and compassion weave through portraits that finally glimmer with hope of liberation. In the hands of one of our most talented writers (The Guardian), the effect is gripping - both a mystery to be solved and a testament to the transformative power of kindness.

Cheerfully independent Florrie Butterfields life has been filled with travel, passion and adventure, but at 87 she feels that the exciting times are over. Then one summer night something unexpected and strange happens, setting Florrie on a determined quest for the truth. As she turns detective, with only a discarded magenta envelope as a clue, she finds herself looking back on her own life, on the people shes known and loved and lost. And as she moves towards solving the mystery of that summer night and the possibility that she might be living alongside a would-be murderer, she also comes to terms with a secret long buried in her past. Susan Fletchers first novel, Eve Green, won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Betty Trask Prize. Since then, she has written seven novels, supplementing her writing through various roles, including as a cheesemonger and a warden for a Roman fort near Hadrians Wall. The Night in Question is this years LitFest Big Town Read, run in association with Wiltshire Libraries, and we encourage everyone to come along with questions for the author. Copies of the book will be available in Marlborough Library from mid-June and reading group questions will be available on the LitFest website from late July.

Told through the story of the five partitions that reshaped modern South Asia, Sam Dalrymples Shattered Lands is a sweeping history that describes how the Indian Empire was unmade: how a single, sprawling dominion became 12 modern nations and how maps were redrawn by politicians in London and revolutionaries in Delhi. As recently as 1928, a vast swathe of Asia India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait was bound together under a single imperial banner, the Indian Empire, also known as the Raj. It was Britains crown jewel, home to a quarter of the worlds population and encompassing the largest Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian communities on the planet. And then, in just 50 years, the Indian Empire shattered. Dalrymples stunning debut is based on meticulous archival research, previously untranslated memoirs, and interviews in English, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi, Konyak, Arabic and Burmese. No wonder his father William recently said he now knows how Kingsley Amis felt when young Martin arrived on the literary scene. The old empire might have fallen, but a new writing dynasty is born.

Tim Bouverie is one of our most popular chroniclers of the Second World War. A Fellow of St Antonys College, Oxford, he became a bestselling author with his debut, Appeasing Hitler . Now he has another Sunday Times bestseller on his hands. Allies at War tells the story of the improbable alliance between Russia, the United States and Britain that was forged by Churchill to stop Adolf Hitler an alliance that ultimately won the war and still has repercussions today. And yet it was a union divided by ideology and riven with mistrust. The German invasion of Russia and Japans attack on Pearl Harbor forced Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin tojoin forces, but they remained fierce rivals, disagreeing on strategy and the future of liberated Europe. Bouverie subjects the so-called special relationship between America and Britain (a term coined after the war by Churchill) to particular scrutiny. More of a pleading relationship, he suggests one American senator dismissed the Limeys as a bunch of cunning and scheming brutes. Bouverie has drawn on hundreds of archives, unpublished diaries and vivid first-hand accounts to offer a page-turning narrativeof the Second World War, and the Cold War that followed. The result is superb, according to fellow historian Tom Holland. Compellingly told, immensely wide-ranging andutterly fascinating.

A delicious, grippingly paced tale of rogues, riotous sex, regicide and realpolitik. If that review from The Independent doesnt grab your interest, nothing will. No public figure in Britain today can come close to the stature of George Villiers in the early 17th century. Born into a family of minor gentry, he rose to become Lord High Admiral and Duke of Buckingham, acting as right-hand man to King James I of England, as well as being his confidant and lover. He was a master horseman, a dazzling dancer and, according to the Bishop of Gloucester, the handsomest-bodied man in all of England. Artists from Van Dyck to Rubens flocked to paint his portrait. If Buckingham is a biographers gift, Hughes-Hallett takes full advantage, drawing out not only his more obvious attributes but also his modesty, pragmatism and capacity for hard work. The Scapegoat will charm you, just as its subject charmed all around him. Hughes-Hallett is the author of four works of non-fiction, a novel and a volume of short stories, and in 2025 was given the Biographers Club Award for an Exceptional Contribution to Biography.

Power tends to corrupt, as the British historian Lord Acton famously said. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. If you doubt his words, look no further than this compelling book by Steve Crawshaw, former chief correspondent at The Independent and former UK director at Human Rights Watch. Starting with the Second World War and stretching through the Balkans and Rwanda to Syria, Gaza and Ukraine, Prosecuting the Powerful brims with examples of men who took control, abused their position, wrought death and destruction on their own citizens and/or those of other nations and thought themselves untouchable. So far, so depressing. But, while the human capacity for inflicting suffering appears limitless, the desire for justice burns brightly and insistently. In 1992, when Crawshaw asked Slobodan Miloevi if he was worried about standing trial for war crimes, the Serbian president batted away the question. Nine years later, he was in the dock in The Hague. We cannot know whether Vladimir Putin will ever face retribution for his actions in Ukraine, but one thing is for sure: with Crawshaw and others on the case, he had better watch his back.

Its the early 1990s, and the young Mary Portas has been brought into the venerable but fusty department store Harvey Nichols to revitalise its image. By the millennium the store will be the anointed home of high fashion, renowned for its headline-grabbing windows and patronage by style icons like Princess Diana. I Shop, Therefore I Am is the story of how Portas created this transformation. Packed with 1990s nostalgia and anecdotes from the fashion world, and written in Portas trademark witty and candid style, her book is a no-holds-barred account of a pivotal time in the UK fashion and retail world, told by an expert insider. Portas is one of the UKs most high-profile and innovative businesswomen. After transforming Harvey Nichols into a global fashion destination, she set up her own creative company, Portas, working with clients ranging from Mercedes to Sainsburys. Her proudest achievement to date is the creation of 26 Marys Living & Giving shops for Save the Children. She is also a regular on our TV screens and the author of Shop Girl, Work Like a Woman and Rebuild.

Have you ever wondered how to peel a banana with a knife and fork? Or the correct way to stir your tea? Or how best to eat a creme brulee? One man has the answers to all these delicate etiquette questions and many more. William Hanson is an internet sensation, his reels on Instagram regularly going viral. More than 11 million people, for example, nowknow that its not OK to dunk a bread roll in your soup. And 12.5million people have watched Hanson demonstrate how to eat a sausage roll. Hanson manages to combine dry, Julian Clary campness with an encyclopaedic knowledge of Britains customs and courtesies. His day job is director of the English Manner, a leading etiquette training institute, where he advises on gracious living and polite behaviour. He also co-hosts a comedy podcast, Help I Sexted My Boss, with the DJ Jordan North. Unlikely bedfellows, perhaps, but last year they hosted a sell-out live tour, which included the London Palladium. Hanson will be talking about his latest book, Just Good Manners, in which he offers advice on everything from how to queue at the bar to whether to say pudding or dessert. As the books dedication says, When in Rome, do as the British do.

Some people think I am a marvellous doctor. Others think I am the work of the Devil. So said Dr William Sargant, the doctor whose controversial methods brought him to the forefront of British psychiatry in the 1960s and into the nightmares of many of the patients, mostly women, on whom he practised. The Sleep Room that gives the book its title was Ward Five of Londons Royal Waterloo Hospital, where Sargant Will to his friends; Bill the Brain Slicer to his critics set to work on vulnerable patients, using techniques ranging from huge doses of antipsychotic, sedative and antidepressant drugs, to electro-convulsive therapy, to lobotomy. For Sargant, the brain was best fixed with physical treatments, but his approach left his patients, who were treated without consent, facing a lifetime of trauma. Several died under his care. Stock lets the victims speak for themselves, with five chapters dedicated to their first-person accounts:Sometimes I go to the depths of despair for no reason, says one, decades after her time in Ward Five. With The Sleep Room, Stock, the author of six spy novels and five psychological thrillers, has written a book as gripping and haunting as any fiction.