By Rufus Pickles

Dartington Hall was buzzing last weekend as festival goers gathered to hear talks, films and performances by pre-eminent figures in independent journalism, comedy and the arts. 

The sold-out Dartington Trust and Byline Festival hosted discussions on the state of the nation and wider world with Guardian columnist George Monbiot, Observer feature writer Carole Cadwalladr and former Daily Telegraph chief political commentator, Peter Oborne. 

Comedians Jonathan Pie and Rosie Holt joined forces on Saturday night for a satirical set poking fun at mainstream media, the ‘Bad Press Awards’.

Stephen Colegrave, a co-founder of the festival, said this year’s theme, ‘is this a 1945 moment?’, was a response to a “broken Britain” which had “lost its way” after “13 years of austerity”, “corruption” and “cronyism”.

He said: “It seemed to us that there is an opportunity we could seize to rebuild Britain, the way we want it to be, or we can just patch it up, as we usually do.”

“That led us to think back to the last time that Britain was rebuilt by a government that was really ambitious.

“Atlee’s government - it created the welfare state, it founded the NHS - really had an amazing impact on everybody’s lives.”

The Byline Times co-founder and executive editor added it “seemed appropriate” to host the festival at Dartington Hall where the 1945 manifesto, ‘Let Us Face the Future’, was drafted by sociologist Michael Young.

The Byline Times is a monthly newspaper which was founded in 2018 to report and discuss ‘what the papers’ don’t say’ and is part of a family of independent media organisations including Byline TV and Byline Investigates.The three-day events programme spanned across ten venues in and around Grade I listed buildings dating back to the 14th century. 

Talks on politics, the media and public services took place in the Great Hall with panel contributions from a number of Byline Times journalists: co-founder Peter Jukes, editor Hardeep Matharu and regular writers Josiah Mortimer, Peter York and Otto English.  

Marina Purkiss and Jemma Forte who co-host The Trawl, one of the Reuters Institute’s top ten news podcasts, also featured prominently.

Meanwhile, crowdfunded publishing company Unbound hosted literary sessions in the Barn Cinema with authors such as Dartmoor-based Martin Shaw and Laline Paull, whose latest novel, Pod, has been shortlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction. 

Emily Hoare, creative director of The Dartington Trust, said: “I was introduced to Stephen Colegrave through Greg Parston, who was chair of the Dartington Trust.

“He knew Stephen - he’d been to Byline events before and, knowing our history, felt maybe there’s potential for a partnership.”

The Dartington Trust was founded in 1925 by Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst who developed the 1,200 acre estate to be a centre of learning and ideas in agriculture, education, the arts and social justice.