The autumn festival ended on 1 November. Next: Si King on Thursday 26 November, £18, then the spring festival 6 to 9 May 2027, tickets out in February.
The autumn 2026 festival is over: it ended on Sunday 1 November. The next dates are a one-off evening with Si King on Thursday 26 November at 7pm, £18 (students £16), and the spring festival from Thursday 6 to Sunday 9 May 2027, with tickets released in February 2027, per the festival’s home page and events listing, read 3 November, where Si King is now the only event on sale.
Updated 3 November: the autumn festival has finished, with 18 events sold out and two talks (James Aldred and George E Osborn) cancelled. The record of the programme is kept below.
The autumn Stratford Literary Festival ran from Thursday 29 October to Sunday 1 November 2026, with 80 events, all at the Crowne Plaza hotel at Bridge Foot, CV37 6YR. Tickets are sold per event, from £9 for children’s sessions to £60 for a wreath-making workshop, and most talks cost £13 to £17. Eighteen events had sold out when we read the festival’s own events listing on 27 October, including Celia Imrie, Damien Lewis, Greg James, Alexei Sayle, Joanne Harris and John Boyne.
Updated 27 October: four more sell-outs since 20 October, Dr Xand van Tulleken (Friday noon), Joanne Harris (Friday 5pm), Alexei Sayle (Saturday 1pm) and Greg James (Saturday 8pm). Victoria Hislop (Thursday 2pm), sold out since 13 October, is now marked “a few tickets released”, so the total is 18. No new cancellations: Aldred and Osborn are still the only two.
Updated 20 October: three more events have sold out since 13 October, Damien Lewis (Friday 2pm), Emelia Hutchinson’s playwriting workshop (Friday 1.30pm) and The Booklovers’ Wine Club (Saturday 6.30pm), taking the total to 15. George E Osborn’s Friday 6.30pm talk, Power Play, is now marked cancelled, the second cancellation after James Aldred. Alexei Sayle (Saturday 1pm) and Greg James (Saturday 8pm) are flagged “only a few tickets left”. The Si King evening on 26 November now names its venue, the Rother Street Arts House, with a £16 student price.
Updated 13 October: Victoria Hislop (Thursday 2pm) has sold out, taking the total to 12, and James Aldred’s Sunday 2.30pm talk, A Wagon in the Woods, is now marked cancelled on the festival’s page, which asks ticket holders to call the box office on 0333 666 3366. The festival has also added a one-off evening outside the festival weekend: Si King on his first solo cookbook, Proper Home Cooking, on Thursday 26 November at 7pm, £18 including the booking fee.
Updated 6 October: Lucy Porter (Saturday 6pm) and the free My One and Only session (Sunday noon) have sold out since 29 September, taking the total from nine to 11.
It lands in Warwickshire’s autumn half term, which runs 26 to 30 October, and its Saturday is Halloween, so the children’s programme leans that way.
The dates
| Autumn festival 2026 | Thursday 29 October to Sunday 1 November |
| Venue | Crowne Plaza, Bridge Foot, Stratford-upon-Avon CV37 6YR |
| Spring festival 2027 | Thursday 6 to Sunday 9 May 2027, tickets released in February 2027 |
The spring dates are on the festival’s home page. The festival says it sometimes uses the Rother Street Arts House or another venue, and that the event page will say so, but every event we opened for this autumn names the Crowne Plaza.
The headline names
The biggest draws by ticket price and billing:
- Thursday: Sir Nicholas Hytner on A Life in Stages, 6.30pm, £20. Sir Max Hastings, 4.30pm, £15. Celia Imrie at 8pm is sold out; Victoria Hislop at 2pm sold out, then had a few tickets released.
- Friday: Sir Jeremy Hunt, Can We Be Rich Again?, 6pm, £20. Jim Al-Khalili, 2pm, £15. Damien Lewis (2pm), Joanne Harris (5pm) and Dr Xand van Tulleken (noon) have sold out. Nick Heyward and Marina Litvinenko, both 8pm, £15.
- Saturday: Greg James, 8pm, and Alexei Sayle, 1pm, have both sold out. Dame Margaret Hodge, 2.30pm, £17. Matt Baker, 11am, £17. Andrew Davies, 6.30pm, £17.
- Sunday: Mary Portas, 4pm, £15. Bonnie Garmus, 5.30pm, £15. Greg Wise, 5.30pm, £17. Rob Wilkins on the Discworld, 11.30am, £13. The festival closes with the English Musical Theatre Orchestra’s Simply Sondheim at 7.30pm, £25, in two 45-minute halves.
Students pay £2 less at most events. A sold-out event still takes names: the festival keeps a waiting list for each one, and you join it by going through the booking process as if to buy.
For children and teenagers
All on the Saturday and Sunday, with the minimum ages the festival gives on each event page:
- Fairytale Fiasco! with Myles McLeod and Evgenia Golubeva, Saturday 10am, £9, ages 5 and over.
- Saving Snowflake with Nicola Baker, Saturday 10am, £9, ages 8 and over.
- Halloween Craft drop-in, Saturday 10.30am, free, but already sold out.
- Playbox theatre workshop, Saturday 11.30am, £10, ages 7 to 11. Children can be left in the workshop, but parents must stay in the building and leave a mobile number.
- Comic Workshop with Zak Simmonds-Hurn, Saturday 1.30pm, £9, ages 7 and over.
- Dungeons & Dragons, Saturday 4pm, £10, ages 11 to 17. (The web address says 7 to 11; the event title and page say 11 to 17.)
- Donut Squad with Neill Cameron, Sunday 11am, £12, ages 7 and over.
- Drawing Manga with Sonia Leong, Sunday 12.30pm, £9, ages 11 to 16.
- The Warhammer Games Café on Friday at 6.30pm, £10, is listed with the children’s events but is for ages 12 and over.
Adults at children’s events need their own ticket unless the event says otherwise. Under 2s who do not need a seat go free. Under 14s must be with an adult; over 14s can attend alone but must be dropped off and collected.
Tickets
- Online: through the festival’s events pages, which book through TicketSource.
- Phone: 0333 666 3366, Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm.
- In person: only during the festival, at the box office and information desk in the Crowne Plaza.
Every ticket carries a booking fee for the external box office, and posting tickets costs £2.50. Tickets are not refundable unless the festival cancels the event, and cannot be exchanged, so the festival suggests the optional refund protection offered at checkout. Events usually last an hour.
Wheelchair users and disabled visitors who need a personal assistant pay for one ticket and the assistant goes free. The festival says all its rooms at the Crowne Plaza have step-free access and there is an accessible toilet. No dogs except assistance dogs. Waterstones runs a pop-up shop in the hotel, and authors sign after each event.
Parking and getting there
The festival’s own FAQ says there is free parking at the Crowne Plaza, first come first served, but you must register your car at reception on arrival or you will be fined. There is a public car park across the road at Bridgefoot. For a popular evening event, arrive early. District car park tariffs are on our Stratford parking page.
The Park and Ride is less use than it looks for this festival. Warwickshire County Council’s timetable page gives the bus as 9am to 3pm on weekdays, with some extra journeys in school holidays, and 9am to 6pm on Saturdays, so the last buses leave before the evening talks start. And the dedicated service does not run on Sundays from November to Easter, except for advertised special events. Sunday 1 November is the first Sunday of that closed season.
The Runaway Mop, which shuts Greenhill Street, part of Rother Street, Wood Street, part of Windsor Street, Henley Street and Meer Street, clears the town by 6.30am on Sunday 25 October, the weekend before the festival. The Waterside Upmarket closes Waterside from Bridge Street to Sheep Street on Sunday 1 November, 9am to 6pm, which does not affect the Bridge Foot side. Anything else on your route is on our roadworks and travel page.
The full timetable
Every event, from the festival’s own listing on 29 September 2026, with sold-out and cancelled marks as of 27 October. Prices are the standard ticket, with the student price where it differs. Check the event page before you travel, because sold-out events and extra tickets change daily; one, Catherine Heaney and Bernard O’Donoghue on Seamus Heaney, was already flagged “more tickets released”.
Thursday 29 October
| Time | Speaker or event | Title | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10am | Workshop: Alix Almond (morning) | Linocut | Sold out |
| 10am | Workshop: Jarred McGinnis | Memory and Story | £30 (£28 students) |
| 12.30pm | Harriet Tyce | Witch Trial | £15 (£13 students) |
| 1.30pm | Gavin Stoneystreet | William Morris and His Gardens | Sold out |
| 2pm | Nigel Biggar and Brian Harrison | This Sceptered Isle? | £13 (£11 students) |
| 2pm | Victoria Hislop | The Wine-Dark Sea | £15 (£13 students), a few tickets released |
| 2pm | Workshop: Alix Almond (afternoon) | Linocut | Sold out |
| 3.30pm | Dennis Sewell | Turncoat: Roundhead to Royalist | £13 (£11 students) |
| 4.30pm | Sir Max Hastings | Plunder | £15 (£13 students) |
| 5pm | Amy Jeffs | Arthur: A New Life | £13 (£11 students) |
| 5pm | Baroness Minette Batters | Harvest | £15 (£13 students) |
| 6.30pm | Jonn Elledge | 31 Inventions that Built Our World | £14 (£12 students) |
| 6.30pm | Matt Coyne and Helen Russell | The Book Taster Event: Fabulous Fiction | £13 (£11 students) |
| 6.30pm | Sir Nicholas Hytner | A Life in Stages | £20 (£15 students) |
| 8pm | Celia Imrie | The Elegant Hustler: Adventures from a Life on the Move | Sold out |
| 8pm | John Sweeney and Daniel Trilling | Turning Right | £13 (£11 students) |
Friday 30 October
| Time | Speaker or event | Title | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9.30am | Workshop: Layla Robinson | Wreath Making | Sold out |
| 11am | Sarah Moss | The Winter Guest | £13 (£11 students) |
| 12pm | Dr Xand van Tulleken | Make Me Well | Sold out |
| 12.30pm | DJ Taylor | Tolkien: The King Under the Mountain | £13 (£11 students) |
| 1.30pm | Emelia Hutchinson | An Introduction to Playwriting (workshop) | Sold out |
| 2pm | Damien Lewis | SAS: Behind Enemy Lines | Sold out |
| 2pm | Jim Al-Khalili | On Time | £15 (£13 students) |
| 3.30pm | Rory MacLean | Geography of Heaven | £13 (£11 students) |
| 3.30pm | Sophie Shorland | All The Queen’s Men | £13 (£11 students) |
| 4pm | Teresa Krasny with David Troughton | Claude Monet: A Life in Letters | £15 (£13 students) |
| 5pm | Alycia Pirmohamed | Shorelines | £13 (£11 students) |
| 5pm | Joanne Harris | Sleepers in the Snow | Sold out |
| 6pm | Sir Jeremy Hunt | Can We Be Rich Again? | £20 (£18 students) |
| 6.30pm | George E Osborn | Power Play: The Political Influence on Gaming | Cancelled |
| 6.30pm | Warhammer Games Café | £10 | |
| 7.30pm | Ian Buxton | Whiskies Galore - A Tour of Scotland’s Island Distilleries | £17 (£15 students) |
| 8pm | Marina Litvinenko | A Life in Fragments | £15 (£13 students) |
| 8pm | Nick Heyward | Fantastic Days: My Story | £15 (£13 students) |
Saturday 31 October
| Time | Speaker or event | Title | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10am | Myles McLeod and Evgenia Golubeva | Fairytale Fiasco! | £9 |
| 10am | Nicola Baker | Saving Snowflake: A Whistledown Farm Adventure | £9 |
| 10.30am | Drop In and Do | Halloween Craft! | Sold out |
| 10.30am | Workshop: Louise Doughty | How To Write About Your Family | Sold out |
| 11am | Matt Baker | My Dogs and Me | £17 (£15 students) |
| 11.30am | Theatre Workshop: Playbox | Theatre of The Unexpected… | £10 |
| 1pm | Alexei Sayle | How I’ve Tried to Change The World | Sold out |
| 1pm | Clare Clark and Roisin Maguire | Novels and Landscape | £15 (£13 students) |
| 1pm | Justin Anderson | Wilderness Songs: Nature’s Hidden Sounds | £15 (£13 students) |
| 1.30pm | Zak Simmonds-Hurn (1.30pm) | Comic Workshop | £9 |
| 2.30pm | Caroline Sanderson and Louise Doughty | My Family and Other Memories | £14 (£12 students) |
| 2.30pm | Dame Margaret Hodge | Battle Axe: A Memoir | £17 (£15 students) |
| 2.30pm | Matthew Rice | A Year in the Garden | £15 (£13 students) |
| 3pm | Gus Casely-Hayford | Objects and Us | £14 (£12 students) |
| 4pm | Bella Mackie | Claws Out! | £14 (£12 students) |
| 4pm | Dungeons & Dragons (Ages 11-17 yrs) | £10 | |
| 4.30pm | Sir Jonathan Bate | The Garden: Our 4,000 Year Quest for Paradise | £15 (£13 students) |
| 5pm | Jeannette Nelson | Finding a Voice | £13 (£11 students) |
| 5.30pm | David Larbi | Frequently Happy | £13 (£11 students) |
| 6pm | Lucy Porter | Middle Aged Women get Sh*t Done | Sold out |
| 6.30pm | Andrew Davies | An Unsuitable Boy: A Life in Scripts | £17 (£15 students) |
| 6.30pm | The Booklovers’ Wine Club | Matching Wine to Books about Food | Sold out |
| 7pm | Catherine Heaney and Bernard O’Donoghue | My Father Seamus Heaney | £14 (£12 students) |
| 7pm | Dungeons and Dragons Games Café (18+) | £10 | |
| 7.30pm | Peter Ormerod and Alexander Larman | David Bowie: Starman | £14 (£12 students) |
| 8pm | Greg James | All the Best for the Future | Sold out |
Sunday 1 November
| Time | Speaker or event | Title | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9.30am | Workshop: Clare Clark | Crackling the Cryptic Crossword | £13 (£11 students) |
| 10am | Sunday Newspaper Review | with Stephen Sackur, Robin Niblett and Lucy Porter | £14 (£12 students) |
| 10.30am | Dr Louise Newson | The Power of Hormones | Sold out |
| 11am | Neill Cameron | Donut Squad | £12 |
| 11.30am | Rob Wilkins | The Discworld Bestiary | £13 (£11 students) |
| 12pm | My One and Only | Which Novel Will Be Left on the Shelf? | Free, sold out |
| 12.30pm | Workshop: Sonia Leong | Drawing Manga | £9 |
| 1pm | Sir Robin Niblett | After America | £15 (£13 students) |
| 1pm | Stephen Sackur | Hard Truth: Investigations that Shook the World | £14 (£12 students) |
| 2pm | Kit Yates | You Don’t Know What You’re Missing | £13 (£11 students) |
| 2.30pm | Iain Dale | Have I Said Too Much? | £13 (£11 students) |
| 2.30pm | James Aldred | A Wagon in the Woods | Cancelled |
| 2.30pm | Simon Garfield | The Pen: A Human History | £13 (£11 students) |
| 3.30pm | Nick Harkaway | The Taper Man | £14 (£12 students) |
| 4pm | Gail Crowther and Paul de Zulueta | Private Lives: Marylin Monroe and Daphne Du Maurier | £14 (£12 students) |
| 4pm | John Boyne | The Weight of Angels | Sold out |
| 4pm | Mary Portas | I Shop Therefore I Am | £15 (£13 students) |
| 5.30pm | Bonnie Garmus | Peck & Peck | £15 (£13 students) |
| 5.30pm | Greg Wise | Grief Talking | £17 |
| 7.30pm | English Musical Theatre Orchestra | Simply Sondheim | £25 (£20 students) |
Is it on this year
Yes. The festival’s home page and its listing of 80 dated, priced events are live, tickets are on sale, and 18 events have already sold out. Two, James Aldred and George E Osborn, have been cancelled. For the rest of what is on in the town that week, including the RSC’s half term sessions and the Halloween screenings, see our Halloween and half term page and what’s on in Stratford this month.
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