Celebrating books, words and ideas. The Off The Shelf Festival of Words is running 14th to 30th October and we are delighted to be hosting them here at Performance Venues. Check below for the events running on our venues, or visit their website for even more!

An Emotional Dictionary: Susie Dent

Sunday 23 October, 1pm

The Octagon Centre

£11/£9

Queen of Countdown’s Dictionary Corner for 30 years, award-winning podcaster and best-

selling author, Susie Dent presents a feast of real but largely unknown words to pinpoint

indescribable emotional highs and lows.  An Emotional Dictionary is an off-kilter and

enchanting lexicon of passions and dislikes and a fascinating dive into words and meaning

that will offer you the ideal term for that hard to define feeling you never knew you

needed.

Playing Under the Piano: From Downton to Darkest Peru – Hugh Bonneville 

Sunday 23 October, 5pm

The Octagon Centre

£11/£9, ticket/book deal available

Hugh Bonneville is one of Britain’s most accomplished actors, familiar to audiences

worldwide for his roles in Notting Hill, the Paddington films and Downton Abbey.  Hugh

creates a brilliantly vivid picture of a career on stage and screen.  A wickedly funny

storyteller, Hugh also writes with poignancy about his father’s dementia and his mother’s

life in the secret service. Whether telling stories of working with divas, Dames or a bear, this

is a richly entertaining account of his life as an actor.

What Just Happened?!  Dispatches from Turbulent Times – Marina Hyde

Monday 24 October, 7.30pm

The Octagon Centre

£11/£9, ticket/book deal available

Drawn from her spectacularly funny and incisive Guardian columns, What Just Happened?!

is a welcome blast of humour and sanity in a world where reality has become stranger than

fiction.  A joyous rallying voice in British journalism Marina Hyde slashes her way through

the hellscape and chaos of modern politics taking on a crazy cast of Hollywood sex

offenders, dastardly dukes, media barons, reality TV monsters and billionaires.