Little Gidding
Saturday 6 July and Sunday 7 July 2013

Note: all timings are approximate and may be subject to change. The details of speakers and talks are confirmed, but may be subject to change due to unforeseen circumstances.

Saturday 6 July 2013

2.00pm Prufrock and other humorous poems
Peter Cochran and Jenny Sargent read Prufrock and some of Eliot’s lighter poems.
2.40pm Valete: Family Memories

Graham Fletcher is the nephew of Valerie and T S Eliot.

3.40pm Afternoon tea
The AGM of the T S Eliot Society (UK) will take place during this break, beginning at 4.00pm
4.30pm MY FAVOURITE ELIOT
Festival-goers are invited to read a short piece or extract from the works of T S Eliot. (It would be helpful if you could notify us if you are interested in contributing to this. Please email eliotfestival@littlegidding.org.uk).
5.00pm Annual Little Gidding Lecture of the T S Eliot Society
Genesis of Murder in the Cathedral
Kenneth Pickering

Kenneth Pickering is honorary professor of drama and theatre at the University of Kent. He is the author of (amongst other books) Drama in the Cathedral, a chronicle of the Canterbury Festival at which Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral was first performed.

6.00pm Supper
Supper in the garden at Ferrar House with its delightful views of Little Gidding Church and south over the Huntingdonshire countryside.
7.30pm EVENING DRAMA
Excerpts from Murder in the Cathedral
Peter Cochran and Jenny Sargent in a dramatic reading of excerpts from the play Murder in the Cathedral.
8.30pm End of Saturday’s programme.

Sunday 7 July 2013

On Sunday the Festival will be joined by members of the T S Eliot International Summer School taking place at the University of London.

11 am Welcome drinks
11.30 am ‘Little Gidding’
Poets Robert Crawford and Daljit Nagra read ‘Little Gidding’

A moment always much anticipated at the Festival each year is the reading of ‘Little Gidding’ on the lawn in front of Little Gidding Church.

12 noon Publishing update
Professor Ronald Schuchard and others give the latest details of the publication of the complete works.
12.15pm Lunch
1.15pm Eliot and Popular Music
Nancy and Guy Hargrove

Nancy Duvall Hargrove is William L Giles Distinguished Professor Emerita of English at Mississippi State University. She is the author of Landscape as Symbol in the Poetry of T S Eliot (Mississippi, 1978) and T S Eliot’s Parisian Year (Florida, 2010). Guy Hargrove is retired Professor of Voice at Mississippi State University and an accomplished tenor singer.

2.00pm Annual Little Gidding Lecture of the International Summer School
Lyndall Gordon
What might have been and what has been: Eliot’s Search for Perfection in Four Quartets.
Lyndall Gordon is a Senior Research Fellow at St Hilda’s College, Oxford; she is the author of Eliot’s Early Years and T S Eliot: An Imperfect Life, which have recently been republished together under the title The Imperfect Life of T S Eliot (Virago, 2012).
3.00pm Afternoon Tea
3.45pm Festival Choral Evensong in Little Gidding Church
4.30pm End of Festival programme

The T S Eliot Festival is organized by the Friends of Little Gidding and the T S Eliot Society, with financial support from Old Possum’s Practical Trust.