Event Name: Seventy Years of Penguin Design

Date/Time: Saturday March 29 - Saturday May 17 2008

Venue: Rotherham Art Gallery

City and Postcode: Rotherham S65 1JH

Description: This fascinating exhibition from the Penguin archives examines the history of the Penguin book cover, tracing its design from the iconic triple-banded and colour-coded early covers to the multifarious covers of today. Celebrating seven decades of book design the exhibition includes beautiful original artwork and early proofs. It explores the development of the famous Penguin logo and showcases some of the most iconic book covers in publishing history. The exhibition also features a display about artist, author and adventurer, Robert Gibbins, who produced illustrations for Penguin Books.

Price: Free

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Tel: (01709) 336 633 / Email:
» cliftonparkmuseum@rotherham.gov.uk

Author Name: James Kelman

Event Name: Aberdeen Word Festival 2008

Date/Time: Friday May 9 2008, 13.30

Venue: King’s College Centre, University of Aberdeen

City and Postcode: Aberdeen, AB24 3FX

Description: The most influential Scottish writer of his generation, Booker Prize winner James Kelman makes a welcome return to Word to read from his new novel Kieron Smith, Boy. It’s already being hailed as his finest work yet – quite a commendation, since his back catalogue includes such achievements as A Disaffection and the Booker-winning How late it was how late.

Price: £5 (£3 concession)

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Box Office:
» http://www.boxofficeaberdeen.com/

Author Name: Rosemary Goring

Event Name: Aberdeen Word Festival 2008

Date/Time: Friday May 9 2008, 12.00

Venue: King’s College Centre, University of Aberdeen

City and Postcode: Aberdeen, AB24 3FX

Description: A discussion on the best selling anthology edited by Rosemary Goring, Literary Editor of The Herald. Here she is in conversation with Scotland's pre-eminent historian TomDevine and author, journalist and broadcaster Magnus Linklater, former Chairman of the Scottish Arts Council. Professor Devine's The Scottish Nation, and Scotland's Empire are already established as classics. Magnus Linklater has co-authored Scotland, A Concise History. He is a former editor of The Scotsman and still writes a weekly column for Scotland on Sunday. This will be a stimulating opening to this year's festival.

Price: £5 (£3 concession)

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Box Office:
» http://www.boxofficeaberdeen.com/

Author Name: Mohsin Hamid

Event Name: Festival of Asian Literature

Date/Time: May 13 2008, 18.30

Venue: Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street

City and Postcode: London W1G 7LP

Description: Mohsin Hamid will be taking part in a panel discussion with Mohammed Hanif, and possibly one other (tbc)

Price: £8 (£5 members)

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Asia House at 020 7307 5454 or email: enquiries@asiahouse.co.uk

Author Name: Marina Lewycka

Event Name: Charleston Festival

Date/Time: May 16 2008, 20.00

Venue: Charleston, Firle, Lewes

City and Postcode: East Sussex BN8 6LL

Description: Two Caravans: Marina Lewycka and Daljit Nagra. In her unique blend of brio and perceptive wit, Marina Lewycka follows her best-selling, award-winning A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian with a novel that charts the fortunes of an assortment of immigrant workers while strawberry picking in Kent. Daljit Nagra’s Look We Have Coming to Dover! is a prize-winning collection of poems about assimilation, aspiration and dislocation, rich in humour. Can literary comedy highlight social issues? Marina Lewycka, whose background is Ukrainian, was born in a refugee camp in Germany. Daljit Nagra’s parents came to the UK from the Punjab in the 50s.

Price: £10

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Dome Box Office, Brighton BN1 1UG 01273709709 www.brightonticketshop.com and www.charleston.org.uk

Author Name: James Robertson

Event Name: Ullapool Book Festival

Date/Time: May 16 2008, 19.00

Venue: Macphail Centre, Mill Street

City and Postcode: Ullapool IV26 2UN

Description: Author Talk

Price: £6

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Tickets will be available by post from Ullapool Book Festival, PO Box 27, IV26 2WY from Easter and in person from our two local bookshops: Ceilidh Place Bookshop, 14 West Argyle Street, Ullapool, IV26 2T and Ullapool Bookshop, Quay Street, Ullapool IV26 2UE

Author Name: Virginia Nicholson

Event Name: Charleston Festival

Date/Time: May 17 2008, 17.00

Venue: Charleston, Firle, Lewes

City and Postcode: East Sussex BN8 6LL

Description: The Way We Were: Does the recent success of two vivid social histories, David Kynaston’s Austerity Britain and Virginia Nicholson’s Singled Out, herald the end of the blockbuster biography? Is the sound bite age more suited to books of personal testimony than to door-stopper, definitive single lives? Singled Out tells the story of how two million women survived without men after WW1; Austerity Britain describes life for ordinary people post WWII. Their authors discuss the art of letting multiple individual voices illustrate an age. David Kynaston is an historian; Virginia Nicholson’s previous book was Among the Bohemians.

Price: £10

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Dome Box Office, Brighton BN1 1UG 01273 709 709 www.brightonticketshop.com and www.charleston.org.uk

Author Name: Alison Light

Event Name: Charleston Festival

Date/Time: May 17 2008, 12.00

Venue: Charleston, Firle, Lewes

City and Postcode: East Sussex BN8 6LL

Description: Hidden Lives: Alison Light and Celia Robertson - Chaired by Giles Waterfield. Alison Light’s Mrs Woolf and the Servants aired Bloomsbury’s dirty laundry in public and retrieved the lives of women who had been relegated to the margins of history. In Who Was Sophie? Celia Robertson tells the story of her grandmother’s journey from Joan Adeney Easdale, child protégée and Hogarth Press poet, to anonymous bag lady. Alison Light, whose grandmother was in service, is a cultural historian; Celia Robertson worked as an actress. They discuss the complex truths revealed by their assiduous sleuthing with novelist Giles Waterfield, curator of the NPG Below Stairs exhibition.

Price: £10

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Dome Box Office, Brighton BN1 1UG 01273 709 709 www.brightonticketshop.com and www.charleston.org.uk

Author Name: Jonathan Coe

Event Name: Charleston Festival

Date/Time: May 18 2008, 14.30

Venue: Charleston, Firle, Lewes

City and Postcode: East Sussex BN8 6LL

Description: This year is the 30th anniversary of Virago Modern Classics - dedicated to the celebration of women writers and founded by Carmen Callil. Novelist Jonathan Coe freely acknowledges his debt to these rediscovered female authors. They discuss the impact of Virago on writers and readers and the influence of Rosamond Lehmann on Coe’s new novel, The Rain Before It Falls, a traumatic family saga, set in the second-half of the 20th century. Jonathan Coe’s previous books include the award-winning What a Carve Up! and The Rotter’s Club. Carmen Callil is the author of Bad Faith.

Price: £10

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Dome Box Office, Brighton BN1 1UG 01273 709 709 www.brightonticketshop.com and www.charleston.org.uk

Author Name: Sathnam Sanghera

Date/Time: Wednesday May 21 2008, 19.30

Venue: Alan Garner Centre, Old Hall Street

City and Postcode: Wolverhampton, WV1 3AU

Description: Author Reading / Talk

Price: £3 / £2

Event contact information: Tickets are available from Simon Fletcher, Literature Development Officer, on 552061 or on the door.

Author Name: Andrew Taylor

Event Name: Preview of Bleeding Heart Square

Date/Time: May 22, 2008, 18.30

Venue: Forest Bookshop, St John Street

City and Postcode: Coleford, GL16 8AR

Description: Andrew Taylor will be previewing and signing copies of his new novel Bleeding Heart Square

Price: contact for venue for info

Event contact information: Forest Bookshop, 01594 833 334

Author Name: Zhu Wen

Event Name: Guardian Hay Festival

Date/Time: Friday 23rd May / 5:30pm

Venue: Segovia Stage, The Drill Hall,25 Lion Street

City and Postcode: Hay-on-Wye,HR3 5AD

Description: New Fiction From China: Introducing the most exciting new voices from China, with Ha Jin (A Free Life), Zhu Wen (I Love Dollars: And Other Stories of China) and Yan Lianke and his translator Julia Lovell, whose sexy, satirical Serve The People! is sensationally banned back home. In association with China Now

Price: £4

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: BOX OFFICE - 0870 990 1299

Author Name: Helen Dunmore

Event Name: Charleston Festival

Date/Time: May 24 2008, 14.30

Venue: Charleston, Firle, Lewes

City and Postcode: East Sussex BN8 6LL

Description: Literary Inspirations - Helen Dunmore and Lloyd Jones: Helen Dunmore’s novel, Counting the Stars, tells the story of the poet Catullus’ tormented relationship with his secret mistress, Clodia – the subject of his most passionate verse – set against the backdrop of Julius Caesar’s Rome. Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip, set on a strife-riddled tropical island in New Guinea where a single white man re-tells Dickens’ Great Expectations to the rapt inhabitants, is a haunting tour-de-force which has become an international best-seller. Helen Dunmore was the first winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, Lloyd Jones, who lives in New Zealand, is a prolific writer.

Price: £10

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Dome Box Office, Brighton, BN1 1UG 01273 709 709 www.brightonticketshop.com and www.charleston.org.uk

Author Name: Will Self

Event Name: Guardian Hay Festival

Date/Time: Saturday 24th May 2008 / 7pm

Venue: Barclays Wealth Marqee, The Drill Hall,25 Lion St

City and Postcode: Hay-on-Wye,HR3 5AD

Description: The spectacular satirist turns his unforgiving gaze on post-colonialism, multiculturalism, intervention, and moral relativism in the dark and brilliant novel The Butt, winner of the 2008 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic fiction. Sponsored by The Sensible Bookshop

Price: £7

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: BOX OFFICE - 0870 990 1299

Author Name: Simon Armitage

Event Name: Guardian Hay Festival

Date/Time: Saturday 24th May 2008 / 8:30pm

Venue: Segovia Stage, The Drill Hall,25 Lion St

City and Postcode: Hay-on-Wye,HR3 5AD

Description: Simon Armitage talks to John Harris The 40-something poet discusses his beautiful, witty memoir Gig: The Life and Times of a Rock-star Fantasist.

Price: £5

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: BOX OFFICE - 0870 990 1299

Author Name: Hadley Freeman

Event Name: Guardian Hay Festival

Date/Time: Sunday 25th May / 9am

Venue: Segovia Stage, The Drill Hall,25 Lion Street

City and Postcode: Hay-on-Wye,HR3 5AD

Description: Start The Day Style, clothes and food on the breakfast agenda with Hadley Freeman’s wickedly funny The Meaning of Sunglasses: A Guide to (Almost) All Things Fashionable and Matthew Fort’s magical gastro-tour of Sicily Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons. Chaired by Palash Dave. Sponsored by Xtreme Organix

Price: £4

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: BOX OFFICE - 0870 990 1299

Author Name: Hsiao-Hung Pai

Event Name: Guardian Hay Festival

Date/Time: Sunday 25th May 2008 / 11:30am

Venue: Sky Movies Cinema, The Drill Hall,25 Lion St

City and Postcode: Hay-on-Wye,HR3 5AD

Description: Chinese Whispers Nick Broomfield, director of the cockle-pickers film Ghosts, interviews Hsiao-Hung Pai about her searing book The True Story Behind Britain’s Hidden Army of Labour.

Price: £5

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: BOX OFFICE - 0870 990 1299

Author Name: Janet Paisley

Event Name: Festival

Date/Time: Friday May 30 2008, 19.30

Venue: Dumbarton Golf Club, Overburn Avenue

City and Postcode: Dumbarton, G82 2BQ

Description: An evening of folk music, poetry, story-telling, drinking and possibly even dancing to celebrate the end of the West Dumbartonshire Literary Festival Booked! Featuring the ever popular poet and novelist Janet Paisley

Price: £3

Event contact information: For tickets please contact Dumbarton library: Tel 01389 608 992

Author Name: Dan Waddell

Event Name: One Moment In Time - A Historical Snapshot

Date/Time: June 6 2008, 10.30

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Dan Waddell, Kate Ellis, Jane Finnis and Ariana Franklin will be discussing history and crime fiction with Rhys Bowen

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Caro Ramsay

Event Name: The Bleeding Edge - Writing Violence

Date/Time: June 6 2008, 10.30

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Caro Ramsay, Chris Mooney, Sheila Quigley and Lee Weeks will be discussing violence in Crime Fiction with Natasha Cooper as part of Crime Fest 2008.

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Sue Walker

Event Name: Location, Location, Location

Date/Time: June 6 2008, 12.00

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Sue Walker, Ann Cleeves, Louise Penny, and Aline Templeton will discuss the importance of place in crime fiction with John Rickards as part of Crime Fest 2008.

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Andrew Taylor

Event Name: How Do You Like Your Eggs? - Soft Boiled vs Hard Boiled?

Date/Time: June 6 2008, 13.30

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Andrew Taylor, Lesley Cookman, Judith Cutler, and Russell James will be discussing their work with Stephen Booth as part of Crime Fest 2008

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Andrew Taylor

Event Name: Andrew Taylor interviews Natasha Taylor

Date/Time: June 6 2008, 16.30

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Andrew Taylor will interview conference toastrix Natasha Cooper as part of Crime Fest 2008

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Mike Morley

Event Name: Scared to Death

Date/Time: June 7 2008

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol BS1 5TA

Description: Mike Morley, Katherine John, Michael Marshall, Jason Pinter and James Twinning will be discussing their work with Declan Hughes

Price: See Crime Fest website for details

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Nick Skidmore, 0117 927 6602

Author Name: Mike Morley

Event Name: Fresh Blood - Debut Crime Writers

Date/Time: June 7 2008

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol BS1 5TA

Description: Michael Morley, Helen Black, S J Bolton, Mary Andrea Clarke, John Macken and Lee Weeks will be discussing their work with Ali Karim

Price: See Crime Fest website for details

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Nick Skidmore, 01179276602

Author Name: Chris Mooney

Event Name: From Short Shorts to Doorstoppers

Date/Time: June 7 2008, 09.00

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Chris Mooney, Adrian Magson, Sally Spedding and John Rickards will be discussing the merits and demerits of book length with Ayo Onatade as part of Crime Fest 2008.

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Charles Cumming

Event Name: How To Write a Thriller

Date/Time: June 7 2008, 09.00

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: To commemorate Ian Fleming’s centenary, Charles Cumming, Nick Stone, Tom Cain and Meg Gardiner will discuss how to write the perfect thriller with Mike Stotter as part of Crime Fest 2008.

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: R. S. Downie

Event Name: Past Tense – The Mystery in History

Date/Time: June 7 2008, 13.30

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: R. S. Downie, Roger Hudson, Bernard Knight and Roz Southey discuss the mystery in history with Bill Gottfried as part of Crime Fest 2008.

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Andrew Taylor

Event Name: Thoroughly Modern Millie - The Historical Female Sleuth

Date/Time: June 7 2008, 10.30

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Andrew Taylor will moderate a discussion between Rhys Bowen, Patricia Finney, Ariana Franklin and Laurie R King as part of Crime Fest 2008

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Dan Waddell

Event Name: Movies In Mind – How Adaptable Is Your Novel?

Date/Time: June 7 2008, 13.30

Venue: Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel

City and Postcode: Bristol, BS1 5TA

Description: Dan Waddell Tom Cain, Christopher Fowler, Jeff Lindsay will be discussing how to adapt to the silver screen with Edward Marston as part of Crime Fest 2008

Price: contact box office for info

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Adrian Muller, adrian@adrianmuller.com

Author Name: Helen Dunmore

Event Name: ‘Baby God’: Emily Bronte and Wuthering Heights

Date/Time: June 7 2008, 20.00

Venue: West Lane Baptist Centre

City and Postcode: West Yorkshire BD22 8EN

Description: To coincide with the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s 2008 special exhibition focusing on Emily Brontë, this event will bring together a number of established authors who have acknowledged the influence of Wuthering Heights on their own writing, and will explore their personal responses to the novel. The panel discussion, chaired by Patsy Stoneman, will include Toby Litt, Bonnie Greer and Helen Dunmore.

Price: £10

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Email: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / Tel: 01535 640188.

Author Name: Andrew Taylor

Event Name: Meet Andrew Taylor

Date/Time: June 10 2008, 18.30

Venue: Sandfields Library, Morrison Road

City and Postcode: Port Talbot SA12 6TG

Description: Meet Andrew Taylor, who will be discussing and signing his new novel Bleeding Heart Square

Price: contact box office for info

Event contact information: Sandfields Library, 01639 883 616

Author Name: Andrew Taylor

Event Name: Andrew Taylor Interviews H.R.F. Keating

Date/Time: June 12 2008, 19.30

Venue: Bath Central Library, 19 The Podium, Northgate Street

City and Postcode: Bath, BA1 5AN

Description: Andrew Taylor will be interviewing H. R. F. Keating, creator of the Inspector Ghote Series, as well as discussing and signing his own novels

Price: contact box office for info

Event contact information: 01225 394 041

Author Name: Ali Smith

Event Name: Borders Book Festival

Date/Time: Thursday 19th June 2008 / 9:30pm

Venue: Harmony Marquee, Harmony House, St Mary's Road

City and Postcode: Melrose, TD6 9LJ

Description: One of Britain’s most exciting and inventive novelists and winner of the Sundial Scottish Arts Council 2008 Award for fiction, Ali Smith will be in Melrose to talk about her work. In addition to her award-winning Girl Meets Boy (The Myth of Iphis) in 2007, she has published much that is memorable - from Hotel World in 2001 to The Accidental in 2004. Both were short listed for the Booker prize and both contain passages of pure brilliance. When Ali’s narrative skills take flight, there is nobody to match her. Introduced by, and in conversation with, Dr Gavin Wallace, Head of Literature at the Scottish Arts Council.

Price: £8/£6

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Box Office Tel: 0844 357 1060

Author Name: Rosemary Goring

Event Name: Borders Book Festival

Date/Time: Saturday 21st June 2008 / 3:30pm

Venue: Harmony Marquee, Harmony House, St Mary's Road

City and Postcode: Melrose, TD6 9LJ

Description: Scotland: The Autobiography is a book of treasures, a series of quotations and reports from the span of our historywritten and recorded by the people who lived it. From St Columba to Donald Dewar, from John Barbour on the Battle of Bannockburn to Iain Anderson on Scotland winning a different sort of Grand Slam at Murrayfi eld in 1990, it is a vivid and beautifully judged journey across 2,000 years. Using two hundred voices to tell it, Rosemary Goring has seamlessly edited together a coherent, flowing tale of how Scotland came to be. Introduced by and in conversation with broadcaster and with broadcaster and writer Fiona Armstrong.

Price: £8/£6

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Box Office Tel: 0844 357 1060

Author Name: David Erdal

Event Name: Borders Book Festival

Date/Time: Sunday 22nd June 2008 / 4pm

Venue: Harmony Marquee, Harmony House, St Mary's Road

City and Postcode: Melrose, TD6 9LJ

Description: Local Heroes, Harvesting Success the Loch Fyne Oysters Way is a surprising, perhaps even eccentric title, but the book is absolutely riveting, an extraordinary story eloquently told. Loch Fyne Oysters was founded by a Highland estate owner, Johnny Noble, who was drowning in debt, and Andy Lane, a marine biologist. After years of great success, Noble suddenly died and the company immediately attracted four predatory bidders. Advised and guided by David Erdal the employees mounted their own bid and the company goes from strength to strength.

Price: ££8/£6

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Box Office Tel: 0844 357 1060

Author Name: Helen Dunmore

Event Name: Ipswich Arts Festival 08

Date/Time: July 4 2008, 18.30

Venue: Ipswich Institute

City and Postcode: Ipswich IP1 3AAL

Description: Author Talk

Price: £7 (includes a glass of wine)

Event contact information: Tel: 01473 432869 or email: info.ipart@ipswich.gov.uk

Author Name: Penelope Lively

Event Name: Buxton Festival

Date/Time: July 22 2008, 10.45

Venue: Buxton Opera House, Water Street, Buxton

City and Postcode: Derbyshire, SK17 6XN

Description: The House in Fiction: Penelope Lively has written novels, short stories, books for children and two experimental memoirs. Her novel Moon Tiger won the Booker Prize and her most recent novel Consequences has received excellent national reviews. In this engaging talk she considers how houses are represented in fiction.

Price: £9

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Festival Box Office, Buxton Festival, 3 The Square, Buxton SK17 6AZ / Box Office Phone: 0845 127 2190 Email: boxoffice@buxtonopera.co.uk

Author Name: Valerie Grove

Event Name: Buxton Festival

Date/Time: 26 July 2008, 10.45

Venue: Buxton Opera House, Water Street, Buxton

City and Postcode: Derbyshire, SK17 6XN

Description: A Voyage Round John Mortimer: Valerie Grove, the renowned journalist, discusses her enthralling biography of John Mortimer. For the first time a biographer has had full access to Mortimer, his circle of friends and colleagues, and their diaries and letters. The result is a riveting account of the life of one of the great national figures of our time. A Voyage Round John Mortimer reveals many aspects of Mortimer’s legal and literary career, from his first novels to his creation, in Horace Rumpole, one of the most popular barristers to emerge from the Old Bailey. "A perceptive and affectionate biography of a national monument and treasure" The Sunday Times

Price: £9

Event URL: » Click here for more information

Event contact information: Festival Box Office, Buxton Festival, 3 The Square, Buxton SK17 6AZ / Box Office Phone: 0845 127 2190 Email: boxoffice@buxtonopera.co.uk