Wolverhampton festival hits the heights in virtual world
The fifth year of a city arts festival saw it go virtual for the first time and attract a global audience.
The Wolverhampton Literature Festival welcomed a stellar cast of characters from the local area and further afield for a range of talks, interviews and interactive events for all ages.
More than 1,950 people from across the world attended more than 40 online events, taking in shows by poets, authors, comedians, performers and academics.
Wolverhampton Council cabinet member for city economy, Councillor Stephen Simkins, said: "I am very pleased that despite the pandemic we were able to host the festival online.
"I’d like to thank everyone involved including the team that organised and managed the events over the weekend.
"By moving the festival online this year we’ve been able to showcase the brilliant talent we have in the city to a global audience who were able to watch from the comfort of their own homes."
Journalist and documentary filmmaker Jon Ronson joined the festival to talk about his 30-year career and officially kick off the proceedings.
He was followed by actress Shobna Gulati, who spoke with Wolverhampton-born artist Dawinder Bansal about her new book Remember me, with Dawinder also premièring her new movie "We found love in the 80s" with musician Martyn Ware.
A number of home-grown performers and authors came to the festival, such as Sathnam Sanghera, who discussed his book "Empireland: How Imperialism has Shaped Modern Britain".
Other local talent included Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford discussing his memoir "Confess" and Patrick Vernon OBE talked about celebrating Wolverhampton’s history.
Audiences also saw Cannock’s Jed Mercurio, creator of Line of Duty and Bodyguard, discuss his crime writing career.
Poetry performances came from Poets, Prattlers and Pandemonialists and Joelle Taylor, who told audiences about her world travel and read from her debut book of short stories "The Night Alphabet".
Arts and Libraries Audience Development Officer, Georgina Cheung, said: "I have loved every minute of organising the festival and have had great colleagues in supporting me to ensure everything worked perfectly.
"Even though we had to move the festival online this year, it has been great to showcase the amazing talent we have in the Black Country, delivering a diverse programme that shines a light on big stars but also our local talent.
A number of the events are available to watch on demand at stream.theatre/season/28.
