West London Literary Festival

The weekend’s wet weather did not put a damper on the spirits of local literature lovers when The West London Literary Festival returned for its second year to the lawns of Acton Green.

Although providing quite an array of poetry, book readings, workshops and the like, I was most interested in two of Saturday’s more thrilling thespian readers: Andrew Motion and Richard Briers.

UK poet Andrew Motion was captivating, whilst the charismatic and outspoken actor Richard Briers (best known as Tom Goode in The Goode Life) was charming.

Motion read pages from an autobiographical novel and from some of his poems, such as Bright Star and The Grave of Rupert Brook, but it was his humble nature and melodious voice that captivated the audience. “Poems are a part of life…they are as natural as breathing,” he said as he addressed the crowd.

Briers, who appears considerably older than he does on screen, is as quintessentially British as one would expect. He quite willingly admits to not liking to leave British soil and thinking that modern television contains “thousands of programmes, thousands of channels and its all rubbish!”

In discussing his choice of desert island books with BBC correspondent Torin Douglas, one gets an intriguing glimpse into Briers’ life and the difficulties of making a living as an actor in television, film and stage.

His first choice of book was a 1939 edition of Winnie the Pooh that his mum used to read to him as a child and his second The Wind in the Willows.

With a very local borough festival kind of feel, I really enjoyed what they had to offer. Still in its infancy, the festival is small but satisfying. With a bar, a mobile library, lots of kiddies rides and the obligatory fast food caravan (Mexican I think) it was a good effort and I will definitely return next year.