Sir Patrick is to headline festival

SIR Patrick Stewart is to headline this year’s Huddersfield Literature Festival.

The world-famous actor and one of the Huddersfield-area’s most renowned sons will appear at Huddersfield Town Hall on Friday, March 16, in conversation with playwright and journalist Nick Ahad.

He will talk about his love of words and how different stories have inspired him and led to his professional career as an actor on stage, screen and television.

Sir Patrick, who was brought up in Mirfield, is well-known for his roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in the television and film series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and as Charles Xavier in the X-Men movies. But he has also had a distinguished career as a Shakespearean actor and wrote his own two-hour stage show, Uneasy Lies The Head.

A fervent Huddersfield Town fan and former chancellor of the University of Huddersfield, Sir Patrick is a patron of Huddersfield Literature Festival.

The festival, which began in 2006, is now an annual event and this year will take place from March 8 to 18.

Tickets for an evening with Sir Patrick, which starts at 7.30pm, are now on sale (£15) through 01484 225755 or online: www.kirkleestownhalls. co.uk The event will have live subtitling for the deaf or hard of hearing and a donation of £1 from all ticket sales will be made to the charity Refuge, for victims of domestic violence, of which Sir Patrick is also a patron.

Other big names in the festival include radio personality Jeremy Vine, Huddersfieldbased author Joanne Harris and Holmfirth painter Ashley Jackson.