Tom Hodgkinson reveals the roster of talent on offer at this year’s Idler Festival

This week we unveil the final programme for the Idler Festival 2023 and I’m really looking forward to seeing you there. If our last three festivals at Fenton House are anything to go by, we’re going to have a glorious weekend, and all the more so as it’s our 30th anniversary. Yes, issue one of the Idler appeared in August 1993, and was produced by me and my good friend Gavin Pretor-Pinney. Issue 90 is about to go to press and will appear at the end of April (and it’s a goodie).

Festival headliners are Irvine Welsh, author of the best books of the nineties, by far, and still going strong with crime capers, TV shows and DJing. We’ve also got the brilliant Sindhu Vee, who abandoned a banking career for stand-up and appeared in the film of Matilda as Mrs Phelps the librarian. And Adam Buxton, who as Idler readers will know, is one of my favourite comedians of all time.

And there’s more! I’m thrilled that my favourite DJ, Georgia Mann of Radio 3, will be both speaking and playing classical tunes in the orchard. The artist Jeremy Deller is making an appearance, plus entrepreneur Cath Kidston MBE, as well as festival favourites Arthur Smith, Ben Moor and Murray Lachlan Young. William Dalrymple returns.

Some of our favourite guests from “A Drink with the Idler” are speaking, including authors Anil Seth, Ruth Kinna, Anna Beer, Rowan Pelling and Kojo Koram.

You’ll be able to chill out on the lawn with your favourite Idler contributors like Tim Richardson, Kamin Mohammadi, Mark Vernon, Suzi Feay, Alex Bellos, Charles Hazlewood, Rachel Kelly, Ella Berthoud, John Mullan, Matthew Green and many more curious and brilliant people.

Zack Polanski of the Green Party plus academics Helen Hester and Brendan Burchell will discuss their theories and research on an idle future.

In the orchard and in the house we’ve got workshops on beekeeping, seaweed and ukulele plus there will be mass dancing lessons from the Mudflappers, and agony aunts, bibliotherapy and tarot readings. Yes, there will be lashings of philosophy, husbandry and merriment of the finest quality.

What a fantastic line-up. No wonder the Spectator called it “Britain’s best literary and arts festival”.

Dates are 7 – 9 July.

See you there.

Our March/April issue is available in bookshops as well as Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, WHSmiths, Booth’s and Easons.