Although Hilary and I were married three months ago we never really had a honeymoon, so on Monday 17th September we’re off to Italy for a few days – Rome first, followed by Sorrento.

The Shakespeare Hotel

When we get back there will be lots of stuff to report, not least a review of a fabulous production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre, starring John Lithgow as Malvolio; a visit to Stratford by my Humdrumming co-director Ian Alexander Martin, plus full preliminary details of ‘The Stratford-upon-Avon International Festival of Literature’, which is to be held at The Shakespeare Hotel on the 18th, 19th, and 20th April 2008.

Writers already booked for the festival includes Colin Wilson, Garry Kilworth, Brian Gordon Sinclair, Greg Lewis, Sebastian Peake, Guy Adams, Martin Val Baker, Roy Cane, and Paul Chapman, whose new book about Dracula, ‘Birth of a Legend’ will be featured. The festival will also feature contributions from authors who written about the life and work of the American novelist, Ernest Hemingway. On the last day of the festival there will be the presentation of ‘The Charles Whiting Award for Literature’, which will have two categories: one for a new work of Military History, and another for a new piece of Wartime Adventure Fiction.

I shall also be reporting on the progress being made in the re-building of the Royal Shakespeare theatre which is now going ahead at full speed.

So, watch this space.