Top names at Lewes Speakers Festival - how to get your tickets

Organiser Marc Rattray said: “We started this festival in 2011 and are delighted to still be going some 11 years later.”

Coming up

Friday, June 10, 17.30 – Colin Thubron, aged 80, describes taking a dramatic 3,000-mile long journey along the Amur river which rises in the Mongolian mountains and flows through Siberia to the Pacific.

Friday, June 10, 19.10 – Alan Johnson, the former cabinet minister, explains his latest thriller novel The Late Train to Gipsy Hill which describes an epic adventure involving the Russian mafia, the FSB and the Metropolitan Police.

Saturday, June 11, 9.50 – Tim Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry.

Saturday, June 11, 11.20 – Iain Dale, presenter of the Evening Show on LBC Radio, gives a part-memoir, part-polemic about the state of public discourse in Britain and the world today.

Saturday, June 11, 12.50 – Fatima Manji, anchor of the UK's Channel 4 News, recontextualises the relationship between Britain and the people and societies of the Orient.

Saturday, June 11, 14.20 – Esther Freud, author of Hideous Kinky and the great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud and daughter of Lucian Freud, explains her novel.

Saturday, June 11, 15.50 – Sandy Gall, former ITN newscaster, and Carlota Gall, Pulitzer Prize winner, give a biography of the Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Saturday, June 11, 17.20 – Gavin Esler, the main presenter of BBC Newsnight for 12 years, explains how British identity political and social challenges will end with the break-up of the UK and the rebirth of English nationalism.

Saturday, June 11, 18.50 – James O’Brien turns the mirror on himself to reveal what he has changed his mind about and why.

Sunday, June 12, 9.50 – Denis MacShane, former Minister of State for Europe, asks why Labour is so good at losing elections and so unhappy and edgy when it does win.

Sunday, June 12, 11.20 – Ian Williams explains how China is building the world’s first digital totalitarian state.

Sunday, June 12, 12.50 – Wing Commander Mike Sutton gives as account of the Typhoon fighter squadron in the war against ISIS, as the commander who led them into combat.

Sunday, June 12, 14.20 – Andrew Monaghan explains the Russian Grand Strategy.

Sunday, June 12, 15.50 – Yasmin Alibhai Brown gives an account of the courageous women who change and changed history and remolded our culture.

Sunday, June 12, 17.20 – Andrew Lownie explains the life of Edward VIII , the “traitor” King who had Nazi intrigues in WW2.

Sunday, June 12, 18.50 – Professor A C Grayling asks if humans can agree on a set of values that will allow us to confront the threats facing the planet.

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