Welcome to the programme for our second Bread and Roses Festival. This year we have expanded the Festival to cover eleven days of events ranging from topical speakers and discussions to radical music. You can book tickets in the bookshop or online via PayPal through this page (you don’t need a PayPal account) – if you want to book more than one ticket, either click the button more than once or update the quantity in the PayPal shopping cart.

Monday 26 October – Antony Loewenstein on Disaster Capitalism

7.00pm-8.30pm, Five Leaves Bookshop

“A journey into a world of mutated economics and corrupt politics that we ignore at our peril.” – John Pilger

Endorsed by Naomi Klein, John Pilger and Noam Chomsky, Disaster Capitalism describes how organisations around the world are profiting from human disasters. Loewenstein writes about how the refugee crisis has disastrously played out, how Australia responds to its migrant situation, the American prison system, and post-earthquake Haiti. He writes for the Guardian, the Washington Post and The Nation.

Tickets: £3.00 Refreshments available















Wednesday 28 October – Antony Clayton on Secret Tunnels of England

7.00pm-8.30pm, Five Leaves Bookshop

Antony Clayton is the author of the popular Subterranean City: Beneath the Streets of London, described as ‘a modern history masterpiece’. He has given talks on subterranean subjects at the British Library, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Bishopsgate Institute. Tonight, Antony will attempt to sort fact from fiction in this illustrated talk and launch of his latest book.

Tickets: £3.00 Refreshments available















Friday 30 October – No Redemption Songs, with Ribbon Road

7.30pm-9.30pm, Friends Meeting House

No Redemption Songs is a powerful film and music project giving a behind-the-lines look at a community rallying together against implacable opposition. Photographer Keith Pattison documented the Miners’ Strike at Easington Colliery, and Brenda Heslop wrote a ten-piece song cycle for her band Ribbon Road, inspired by the photographs and recent visits to Easington Colliery. This show, including the film and the songs, was a sell-out at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Tickets: £10.00 (£5 concs) Light refreshments available.



Ticket type Full price £10.00 GBP Concessions £5.00 GBP











Saturday 31 October – Popular Protest in Palestine, with Marwan Darweish and Andrew Rigby

2.00pm-3.30pm, Friends Meeting House

The authors examine nonviolent resistance to the Occupation ranging from the pre-state Brit Shalom group of Martin Buber through to the first Intifada, coming up to date with the manifesto of the Gaza Youth Break Out group which declared: “We, the youth in Gaza are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community! … We will start by destroying the occupation that surrounds ourselves, we will break free from this mental incarceration and regain our dignity and self respect. … We will build dreams where we meet walls.”

Tickets: £3.00 Light refreshments available, including Palestinian food.















Saturday 31 October – George Orwell: English Rebel, with Robert Colls

2.00pm-3.30pm, Friends Meeting House

An intellectual who did not like intellectuals, a socialist who did not trust the state, a writer of the left who found it easier to forgive writers of the right, a liberal who was against free markets, a Protestant who believed in religion but not in God, a fierce opponent of nationalism who defined Englishness for a generation. Aside from being one of the greatest political essayists in the English language and author of two of the most famous books in 20th century literature… Robert Colls takes us on a journey through the many twists and turns of Orwell’s life and thought.

Tickets: £3.00 including light refreshments















Saturday 31 October – “…the state has been taking liberties and these liberties were once ours”, with Shami Chakrabarti

4.00pm-6.00pm, Friends Meeting House

Shami Chakrabarti has been the director of Liberty, the British civil liberties advocacy organisation, since 2003. In this lecture she addresses the late EP Thompson’s famous quote. Thompson died in 1993 and he was referring to the 70s and 80s. How have civil liberties fared over the last two decades? And what can we do to preserve them? Shami’s book, On Liberty, has just been published in paperback

Tickets: £3.00 Light refreshments available.















Saturday 31 October – Woody Guthrie: hard times and hard travelin’, with Will Kaufman

7.30pm-9.30pm, Friends Meeting House

Will Kaufman’s show is a captivating “live documentary” that sets the songs of Woody Guthrie in the context of the American 1930s – the Dust Bowl, the Depression, the New Deal and the state of popular music itself. Hard-hitting Guthrie songs are brought into conversation with other relevant songs. Altogether the show highlights the blending of music and radical politics that marks Guthrie’s most powerful work.

Tickets: £6 (£4 concessions) Light refreshments available.



Ticket type Full price £6.00 GBP Concessions £4.00 GBP











Sunday 1 November – Making bread and growing roses? with Andrew Bibby, David Rosenberg and Nigel Todd

4.00pm-5.45pm, Friends Meeting House

Andrew Bibby is the author of All Our Own Work, a history of the Hebden Bridge workers who successfully ran their own textile mill in the nineteenth century; Nigel Todd is the author of Roses and Revolutionaries, a history of a utopian labour movement “colony” in the North East; David Rosenberg is the author of Rebel Footprints, a radical walking guide to London. They discuss the relationship between utopian vision and practice, as well as their own take on radical history.

Tickets: £3.00 Light refreshments available.















Sunday 1 November – After the Corbyn election: what now?

7.00pm-8.30pm, Friends Meeting House

In the wake of Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party, can we create a non-nuclear, greener, more equal society? What challenges face us? What alliances need to be built? A panel discussion with Andrew Fisher (Corbyn’s policy advisor), Chris Williamson (former MP, Derby North), Lauren Mitchell (Ashfield’s youngest ever Councillor) and (hopefully – check our website) a Green Party speaker. There will be plenty of time for discussion.

Free, but please reserve your place by emailing bookshop@fiveleaves.co.uk

Sunday 1 November – John Lucas on The Awkward Squad: cricketing rebels

7.00pm-8.30pm, Five Leaves Bookshop

Rebels have always been part of English cricket. There were cricketing rebels in the 18th century, and there are still and always will be those who protest against one or other of cricket’s laws, against pay and conditions, against the game’s governance, and against the presumed rights of authority. In telling their stories, some comic, some tragic, The Awkward Squad also provides an account of the changing social scene out of which different acts of rebellion came.

Tickets: £3 including light refreshments















Monday 2 November – The Page Is White? The publishing industry and Black and Asian writers, with Kadija George and Farhana Shaikh

7.00pm-8.30pm, Five Leaves Bookshop

After a short period of grace, it appears that Black and Asian writers are struggling, more than most, to be published and promoted, or are confined to writing in stereotypical ways. How has this happened, and how can this be changed? Kadija George edits Sable magazine and was the editor of the Penguin Book of New Black Writing – that this is now out of print and came out in 2000 tells the story in microcosm. Farhana Shaikh runs Leicester Writing Events, Dahlia Publishing and edits The Asian Writer. Chaired by Henderson Mullin of Writing East Midlands.

Tickets: £3.00 including light refreshments















Wednesday 4 November – Fiona Buffini on The Duchess of Malfi

7.00pm-8.30pm, Five Leaves Bookshop. In association with Nottingham Playhouse

“Whether we fall by ambition, blood or lust, like diamonds we are cut by our own dust.”

A secret marriage provokes fury, espionage and bloody murder in John Webster’s tragedy, one of the most celebrated plays of the Jacobean era. When the Duchess of Malfi marries below her class, her brothers – a ferocious duke and ice-cold cardinal – set a dangerous spy against her. Their schemes spiral out of control, until nightmare engulfs them all. Nottingham Playhouse Associate Director Fiona Buffini directs this blood-soaked masterpiece and takes time out (the play runs from 30th October–14th November) to talk about the play and the politics of the period. Part of the Conspiracy season at the Playhouse.

Tickets: £3.00 including refreshments















Thursday 5 November – Southern Insurgency: the coming of the global working class, with Immanuel Ness

7.00pm-8.30pm, Five Leaves Bookshop. In association with Nottingham Trade Union Forum

Even as labour in the developed world seems to be in retreat, industrial struggle continues elsewhere – and with particular force in the Global South. In Southern Insurgency, Immanuel Ness provides an expert perspective of three countries where workers are fighting unchecked industrial capitalism: China, India, and South Africa. He considers the broader historical forces in play, and narrows his focus to the specifics of the current grassroots insurgency: the militancy of miners in South Africa, new labour organisations in India, and the rise of worker insurgencies in China.

Tickets: £3.00 including refreshments















General information

Bookstalls: there will be a Five Leaves bookstall at all events carrying a wide range of radical books and (given the time of year) radical presents. Ex-Libris will be selling second-hand books between events at the Friends Meeting House, raising money for Nottingham Refugee Forum.

Catering: Veggies Catering Campaign will be selling tea, coffee, cakes, veggie sausage rolls and suchlike at the Friends Meeting House

Five Leaves Bookshop: 14a Long Row, Nottingham NG1 2DH (0115 8373097). The Bookshop is in an alleyway opposite Nottingham Tourist Information, one minute from the Market Square. No car parking on site. City centre buses/trams stop nearby.

Friends Meeting House: 25 Clarendon Street, Nottingham NG1 5JD. Nottingham Trent City tram stop is nearby, seven minutes from Victoria Centre Clocktower. Limited on-street parking.

Access: both venues are wheelchair-accessible with wheelchair-accessible toilets­.