Our 2024 Curious Minds, a Festival to Ignite Ideas took place in Bath 7 - 28 March 2024.

This brand new Bath festival featured over 30 book talks, live performances, film screenings, writing workshops and walking tours. Taking place across a range of fabulous venues with events designed to entertain, inform, connect and challenge, we hope it encouraged our attendants to feed their Curious Mind!

Festival highlights included:

• insights from the BBC’s International Editor, Jeremy Bowen, on the current situation in The Middle East

• Polari Salon, London’s award winning LGBTQ+ evening celebrating queer prose and performance

• The Curious Minds 2024 Conversation: Peter Frankopan and Adam Rutherford discussed humankind’s efforts to make sense of the natural world

• comedian Robin Ince took us on an adventure in scientific curiosity

• a brand new walk curated for this 2024 festival, 50 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Bath with Fred Mawer Tours.

• Bryony Gordon, the pioneering author and campaigner who talked about her new book Mad Woman.

• Screenings of Whoopi Goldberg’s film The Associate, followed by a discussion with the author of How Film and TV can Solve Racism and Solve the World, Ellen J Jones; and Lorna Tucker’s Someone’s Daughter, Someone’s Son, a new documentary exploring homelessness, followed by a discussion with Julian House. 

• an evening of jazz and conversation with writer, Varaidzo and award winning jazz musician, Orphy Robinson to launch the Bath based book Manny and the Baby

• a writing day at Persephone Books with Harriet Evans and Juliet Pickering

The festival kicked off with The Big Bath Pop Culture Quiz. This fundraiser was open to all and the theme was entertainment, testing your knowledge of books, film, TV, and music – hosted by local drag performer, Mother.

Curious Minds collaborated with The 7 Hills who brought The Songwriters Festival to the Assembly Rooms on Saturday 16 March - a chance to see some of the award-winning artists of 2023, Elles Bailey, Robert Vincent, Michele Stodart and Hannah White as well as upcoming new Bath artists, local legends and known-stalwarts.

Curious Minds 2024 was sponsored and supported by Apex City of Bath Hotel, Mytton Williams, Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, The 7 Hills, Komedia, University of Bath, Persephone Books, FilmBath, Little Theatre Bath, TSL Consulting and Good Crowd Media.