Wealth managers celebrate Lit Fest association

Marlborough-based wealth management company Brewin Dolphin are celebrating a nine-year association with the town’s literature festival, which this morning (Wednesday) saw unprecedented demand for tickets.

Clamour for tickets to see the UK’s best-selling author – television presenter and comedian David Walliams – reached fever pitch when the Marlborough Literature Festival box office opened to the public at 9am.

Walliams, who had been scheduled to appear at 10.30am on Sunday, September 30, had already agreed to put on a second performance in the afternoon – both at the 560-seat Memorial Hall at Marlborough College.

But within two hours of tickets being released, they had sold out. Queues had formed outside the town’s independent White Horse Book Shop for physical sales, while visitors to the website were placed in a queue, before organisers announced online tickets had sold out too.

David Walliams was the biggest-selling author of 2017, with sales of more than £16 million from his children’s books. His first book – The Boy in the Dress – celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.

At the official programme launch on Tuesday night (July 10) members of the Brewin Dolphin team were celebrating the firm’s ongoing headline sponsorship of the festival with organisers including chairman Jan Williamson.

Brewin Dolphin’s divisional director Myles Palmer said: “We have been the headline sponsor of the festival since its launch in 2010, and continue to be enthusiastic supporters of this great event.”

The lineup of festival speakers includes former Daily Telegraph editor Max Hastings bestselling novelist Kate Mosse, former Labour Party minister Alan Johnson, and the editor of the Times Literary Supplement, Stig Abell.