2017 festival: Author

Andy Hamilton

head and shirt photo of Andy Hamilton
Andy Hamilton: photo by Steve Ullathorne

Andy Hamilton is one of Britain’s best loved comedy performers and writers.

He is best known to millions for co-writing the BBC One hit sitcom Outnumbered and for his appearances on TV shows such as Have I Got News For You and QI. His other TV work includes co-writing the classic Channel 4 TV sitcom Drop The Dead Donkey and creating sketches for Not the Nine O’Clock News, Alas Smith and Jones, and The Armstrong and Miller Show.

Andy is also a regular panellist on radio shows such as The News Quiz and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. For over a decade, he has starred as Satan in his own award-winning Radio 4 sitcom Old Harry’s Game, and in recent years has been a creative force behind Revolting People and Trevor’s World of Sport.

Andy also co-wrote and produced the 2014 film What We Did On Our Holiday starring David Tennant, Billy Connolly and Rosamund Pike.

His debut novel The Star Witness – which chronicles the story of TV soap star Kevin Carver’s descent into disgrace and his attempt to discover his dignity – has just been published.

One reviewer described it as “a pin-sharp satire on the shallows of modern media culture and the dysfunctional relationship we have with the idea of ‘celebrity’. It will keep you laughing, cringing and guessing until the very last page.”

Andy, who has two sell-out UK stage tours to his credit and won the 2009 British Comedy Award, will be supporting Books in the Belfry straight after another series of one-man shows.

 

You can find out more about his novel – ready to be primed with questions on the night at Books in the Belfry – as Andy explains the plot on a video at https://unbound.com/books/star-witness.

Ian Ridley

portrait of Ian Ridley
Ian Ridley

Ian Ridley is the author of 12 sports books, including the number one best-selling Addicted with former Arsenal and England captain Tony Adams, which was nominated for the William Hill Sports book of the Year, and Tales from the Boot Camps with Steve Claridge.

Added Time, the biography of former Premier League referee Mark Halsey, was also short-listed for the 2014 British Sports Books Awards and A Dazzling Darkness, the biography of world champion boxer Darren Barker, made the short-list for the 2015 awards.

Over a 40 year career he has written for The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer and The Mail on Sunday, for whom he was Chief Football Writer, and is a regular pundit on both TV and radio.

He was named Sports Journalist of the Year in the 2007 British Press Awards and has been nominated on two other occasions. He also has his own publishing company Floodlit Dreams.

Ian has again worked with Tony Adams on Sober, the follow-up to Addicted, to be published by Simon and Schuster in June this year. He has also just finished his own debut novel The Outer Circle which you can find out more about at https://unbound.com/books/the-outer-circle

Ian has lived in Flamstead for the past 12 years.