PROGRAMME
Two days of inspiring conversations. 19-20 September 2026, Bruton, Somerset.
SATURDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
WELCOME TO BIG BRUE
Join Big Brue’s founders, Mariella Frostrup, Jason McCue, Eleanor O’Keeffe and Catherine Fairweather, as they open the inaugural festival and set out the ideas, questions and ambitions behind it…
MUSHROOMS AND THE MIND
Once dismissed as dangerous counterculture, psychedelic drugs are now being seriously explored as treatments for trauma, depression and addiction. Psychedelic mushrooms and plant medicines such as…
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT MIGRATION
Few subjects are more politically charged, or more easily reduced to slogans, than migration. Yet the movement of people across borders is not an aberration of the modern world. It has shaped…
SOMERSET STATE OF MIND
How does a landscape become part of our creative identity and our understanding of where we belong? Somerset’s myths, legends and particular energy have long inspired fashion designer Alice…
MUSEUMS OF THE FUTURE
Museums are built to preserve the past, but their own place in the future is far from settled. Who are they for, who decides what they collect and display, and how should institutions often shaped by…
REACHING FOR WONDERMENT
When did the world last stop you in your tracks? Wonder can be found in music, landscape, distant places and the lives unfolding around us, but our hurried, screen-saturated lives do not always leave…
FAMILY MATTERS
How can families live with profound political and moral disagreement without allowing it to pull them apart? Prue Leith and Danny Kruger may be mother and son, but their lives and beliefs have…
5x15: CAN BRITAIN BE "GREAT" AGAIN?
Britain is going through something of a crisis of confidence, shaped by questions about what it once was, what it is today and what it wants to become. But beyond the familiar arguments about decline…
THE RETURN OF EMPIRE?
What can the rise and fall of empires tell us about the world now, and about what may come next? William Dalrymple and Peter Frankopan are two of our most acclaimed and wide-ranging historians, known…
DIFFICULT WOMEN
Who gets called difficult, and why? Too outspoken, too ambitious, too angry, too unwilling to play nicely: women who challenge expectations are often judged by standards rarely applied to men. Join…
CRAFTING FOR SURVIVAL
During nearly six years of detention in Iran, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe discovered that making things could be an act of resistance: a way to preserve identity, create beauty and retain some measure…
AMERICA ON THE BRINK
Can American democracy survive the forces pulling the country apart, or is it approaching a point of no return? Two hundred and fifty years after declaring independence, the United States remains the…
POETRY BATTLE
Dominic West and Bob Geldof go head-to-head to champion the poems they believe everyone else should love. They will share old favourites, spring unexpected discoveries on one another and make the…
LOCAL INGREDIENTS, GLOBAL APPETITES
How do you create food rooted in a particular place without becoming constrained by tradition? British cooking has always absorbed ideas, ingredients and techniques from other places and food…
SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER
HOW TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR
What separates a promising idea from a business capable of changing the way people live? Entrepreneurship is often presented as a story of inspiration followed inevitably by success. The reality…
SUNDAY PAPER ROUND
In a world of breaking-news alerts, infinite scrolling and fiercely personalised feeds, the Sunday papers still offer something different: a shared set of stories and the convivial ritual of…
AI AND GLOBAL DISORDER
Artificial intelligence is acquiring the power to reshape global affairs faster than we can understand, regulate or control it. Its consequences already extend far beyond technological innovation…
NURTURING CREATIVITY
Where does creativity come from? Is it an innate gift, something awakened by an encounter or encouragement, or a capacity that all of us can learn to develop? And why does it sometimes emerge most…
MAKING SPACE FOR NATURE
What would it take to bring nature back across Britain’s farms, rivers and rural landscapes, and who gets to decide what that recovery should look like? Environmentalist and rewilding advocate Ben…
TRUTH-TELLING IN A FAKE NEWS WORLD
What happens when the problem is no longer simply false stories, but the erosion of any shared sense of reality? In an information system shaped by algorithms, political propaganda, artificial…
FLIPPING THE NARRATIVE
What happens when other people’s ideas about who you are begin to define your life? Women have long been assigned roles by family, society and the media, and judged against expectations of beauty…
NEW WORLD ORDER?
Wars rage unchecked, borders are violated and international law is increasingly ignored by the very powers supposed to uphold it. So who makes the rules now, and what happens when the powerful simply…
THE THIRD ACT
Prue Leith in conversation with Catherine Fairweather
What are our later years for? Should they offer a well-earned rest after the stresses and strains of a life well lived, or the freedom to begin again? Restaurateur, writer, campaigner and television…
AN ANARCHIST IN THE GARDEN
Every gardener knows the struggle: the desire to impose order set against nature’s determination to do as it pleases. But where should we draw the line between cultivation and control, or between…
LIFE LESSONS
Bob Geldof in conversation with Julia Samuel
Bob Geldof first became famous nearly fifty years ago, when the Boomtown Rats first started making their presence felt at the top of the UK Charts. Since then, he has lived much of his life in…
MUSIC FROM THE FRONTLINE
Don McCullin in conversation, with a performance by the Cavatina Orchestra
For more than sixty years, Don McCullin has documented war, poverty and human suffering with unflinching honesty. In this specially created event, marking the publication of his new book on Vietnam…
