Swanage Literary Festival: Larry Lamb and a full line-up

The Swanage Literary Festival is back for its third year, and it has grown again. What started in November 2024 as a one-day affair became two days in 2025, and this time it stretches across three: Thursday 5 to Saturday 7 November, with the Mowlem Theatre on Shore Road doing the heavy lifting as the main venue. It is run as a Community Interest Company, and the local connection runs deep, with Purbeck Sounds among the organisations it works with.

Larry Lamb is the headline name this year. The actor and radio presenter, known for EastEnders and Gavin & Stacey, is sharing his own poetry at the Poetry and Performance evening. He published the novel All Wrapped Up in 2025 and the memoir Mummy's Boy back in 2011, with a poetry collection due in 2027; he is one per cent Welsh and has been writing poetry since 1983. The bill around him is long, with Sophie Hannah, the bestselling crime writer and poet whose work reaches 51 countries and 49 languages, talking about Agatha, Poirot and Me. She is best known for her psychological crime novels and a series of five based on Hercule Poirot, and her murder mystery musical The Mystery of Mr E became a feature film on Amazon Prime in 2023. Kristen Perrin, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of How to Solve Your Own Murder and How to Seal Your Own Fate, brings her third book, How to Cheat Your Own Death, which comes out in 2026.

There is plenty of Dorset talent in the mix too. Sally Page, based here in Dorset, has written The Keeper of Stories, The Book of Beginnings and The Secrets of Flowers, with New Beginnings for Christmas and Six Little Words on either side of the last year. Alex Stone writes psychological thrillers set in Dorset, with a sixth novel due in autumn 2026 set in the Purbeck and featuring Swanage and Corfe Castle. Steve Couch, author of Dead Man Singing, Foul and Fair and Imogen Imagine, pairs up with Olly Hopper-Pay for musically enhanced readings. The rest of the line-up takes in Andreina Cordani, the Thomas Hardy Society's Mark Damon Chutter, travel writer Nicholas Jubber, children's author Chris Smith, comedy poet Martin Hobdell, Mel Taylor Bessant, nature writer Dominic Couzens, soprano Grace Lovelass, and a military history pairing of Dr Will Ward and Joanna Weaver, daughter of Major Peter Weaver and former 1980 Winter Olympics representative.

The days shape up differently. Thursday opens with The Big Book Quiz in the Showbar. Friday is the poetry day, with a Purbeck School presentation, a Words to Inspire workshop and an evening of spoken word and storytelling that runs from Nick Jubber's Tales of Fairies & Magical Beings through to Larry Lamb and Martin Hobdell. Saturday is the author day, opening with Kristin Perrin and the Whose Book is it Anyway? panel before Sally Page, David Wickham, Sophie Hannah and Dominic Couzens take their turns, with Steve Couch and Olly Hopper-Pay closing things out. On Sunday 8 November, the focus shifts to children at Swanage Library, with Rhyme Time for toddlers, storytelling for pre-schoolers and a session with author Barbara Townsend; all the children's events are free, and local schools get involved with presentations and competitions.

If you want to browse before or after, the Swanage Bookshop on Station Road, just a hundred yards from the railway station, stocks signed copies and a wide range of the authors' books. The festival is backed by a long list of local sponsors, from the Swanage & Purbeck Rotary Club and the Swanage WI to The Grand Hotel Swanage and Radio Chococo.