Lichfield Festival is also delighted to announce its newest Patron, the author, Tudor historian, broadcaster and joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, Tracy Borman (front page pic).

Damian Thantrey, Lichfield Festival Director, said: “Tracy has been a regular and much-loved visitor to both our Literature and Summer Festivals in recent seasons, and we were very proud to have her as our Festival Writer/Historian in Residence in 2023. Despite her extremely busy and ever-growing career, she still always finds time to come to support our Festival – her every event is a guaranteed sell-out, and we are thrilled that she has agreed to become a Festival Patron.”

Tracy Borman said: “It is such an honour to be invited to become a Festival Patron and means a great deal to me, given how close the Festival – and the city – are to my heart. Lichfield Festival is already such a huge success, and I will look forward both to taking part in future events and shouting about it from the rooftops!”

Programmed for the Festival by Melonie Atraghji, Julian Bell and Emma Reed, guest authors at this year’s Literature Festival include the former BBC journalist Rory Cellan-Jones, whose memoir Ruskin Park is a heartfelt account of a family mystery with a shoe box of letters as clues; Festival favourite (and the Festival Writer/Historian in Residence 2024), Alison Weir brings the middle book of her Sunday Times best-selling Tudor Rose trilogy to Lichfield; Ian Dunt digs deep into our political system and its never-ending machinations in How Westminster Works…and Why It Doesn’t and, in a similar vein, the Director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, decodes our public finances at a time when what we spend and how we spend it is never far from the news headlines.

Two books look at the English and US Civil Wars respectively, as popular historian Jessie Childs (The Siege of Loyalty House) makes a first visit to the Festival, joined by the returning Peter Moore (Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness). Former BBC Radio 4 Today editor, Sarah Sands, also returns to Lichfield with her natural world and memoir cross-over The Hedgehog Diaries, and there is more from the animal world as Rosamund Young (author of a Times’ book of year, The Secret Life of Cows) turns her attention to The Wisdom of Sheep & Other Animals. In fiction, there is much anticipation over the new release Small Hours by Bobby Palmer, whose Isaac and the Egg was a smash-hit in 2022/23.

The Festival also welcomes Bob Cryer, son of comedy legend Barry Cryer, who reveals the story of the man behind the jokes (Same Time Tomorrow?), and hot topics in current affairs are addressed by both Tiffany Jenkins’ book on the thorny question of the Elgin Marbles, Nigel Biggar’s Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning and, in a joint event with the Lichfield Garrick Theatre to close the Festival, Nick Wallis (pictured), one of the journalists at the forefront of the Horizon investigation, takes the stage to discuss the jaw-dropping miscarriage of justice that is The Post Office Scandal – The Inside Story.

This superb series of events will all be held in the centre of Lichfield, at The George Hotel, The Hub at St Mary’s and the Garrick Theatre.