Following last year’s Radical Writing Retreat, Radical ESSEX again collaborate with Essex Book Festival to present ‘The Nucelar Option’, the finale to a day of readings, performances tours, films, storytelling and discussion at Kelvedon Hatch’s Secret Nuclear Bunker.

As night falls The Bunker will metamorphose into  a labyrinth of ‘unearthly delights’, with Cambridge Bard Glenys Newton and fellow ‘spirit guides’ taking people on a tour of this unique Underworld.

The evening will include an appointment with Mueller & Malten’s Live Poetry Juke Box in the Prime Minister’s bedroom; visitations to a series of interventions, performances and screenings under the banner of Eastward: Sound and Silence, a creative response to the declarations of Polish and Latvian Independence in 1918 and the forced migrations post-WW2 led by Polish/Latvian artist collective Peeling Onions With Granny; a disturbing encounter with award-winning fairy tale maestro Nicky Winder; plus a plethora of other brief but poignant Bunker encounters.

Mark your card for the second Essex Book Festival Peace Panel: Picking Apart Propaganda chaired by Rachael Jolley, Editor of global magazine Index on Censorship. Located in the Government Rooms, the perfect setting for a panel discussion that will be looking at different stories from history, technology and media about how and why propaganda is used to persuade the public, our panellists will include author Jamie Bartlett (Radicals, The Dark Net, Orwell vs the Terrorists), journalist David Aaronvitch (Party Animals: My Family and Other Communists), and journalist and writer Xinran (Good Women of China, What the Chinese Don’t Eat). 

The night will draw to a close with a new show Attempted Peace by festival favourite Adrian May and Face Furniture. A celebration of peace through writings from Adrian’s 40 year career in song and verse, including material from his ‘end of the world’ show from the 80s, a song sung at Greenham Women’s Peace Camp, and other lyrical and musical protest matter!

Tickets: £10
Please note, this does not include bunker entrance fees, which are Adults £7.50 | Children £5.50 | Family £18, payable in cash on the door

A free coach will run between Focal Point Gallery, Metal and the Bunker, to book a place, please click here. This is provided by Focal Point Gallery and the New Geographies programme.

For more information and to book tickets please click here