‘Caesar was very visible, just like President Trump’

Hyacinth Bucket with Lumley’s embodiment of drunken fashion director Patsy Stone on Absolutely Fabulous.

He said: “You [Lumley] and she share the distinction to have created in one lifetime one character that becomes an iconic figure on its own.”

Lumley went on to read passages from her book, a collection of writings which she said had either given her “solace or comfort or energy”, while some had amused her or filled her with “wonder”.

She read a passage from James Bond author Ian Fleming, dedicating it to his niece, Lucy, who was in the audience.

She also recalled some famous encounters like working with Leonardo DiCaprio on Wolf of Wall Street and meeting Frank Sinatra at a London party.

When prompted to recount her “greatest encounter”, Lumley recalled meeting poet Ted Hughes, who she described as “Heathcliff-ian”.

She said: “He was astonishing, the Queen Mother was in love with him. He had the most dazzling looks and the most extraordinary direct stare. He looked a bit like a ruffian and he was a brilliant poet.”

The discussion spanned the breadth of Lumley’s varied career, which has seen her present several travelling shows, star in film and TV and act as patron of various charities.

She corrected Brandreth, who had assumed she found riches when she won the starring role in the Seventies spy series The New Avengers.

She said: “I was on a five-year contract and they told me, ‘The first two years will be a bit slim but, after that, your pay goes up, up, up, and by the end of it you could buy a small country, you’ll be so rich you can take your yacht to your small country’.

“I thought, well, that’s marvellous. What I didn’t know was that their plan was only to do the first two years.”

On Saturday, about
150 people gathered at the town hall for environmental charity Greener Henley’s first event in its new partnership with the festival. The discussion focused on how local communities can lead the change towards a safer future.

The event featured Tony Juniper, environmentalist and author of Just Earth, and Sangeeta Waldron, award-winning communications expert and author of What Will Your Legacy Be?

Juniper, whose book explores how inequality represents a barrier to climate progress, emphasised the need to connect grassroots movements across sectors.

He said: “The emissions keep going up… and the reason that the emissions keep going up is that we’ve not changed the basics of what countries are doing because we haven’t yet convinced enough people. Building this grassroots infrastructure, connecting it up, getting it out of its little green silos, joining it up with other social movements linked with health, with poverty, with education, with sport... that’s how we’re going to get change.”

Professor Dame Mary Beard, a world-renowned historian, said she has “no emotional connection” with Roman emperors, whom she described as “nasty guys”.

The classicist discussed various aspects of ancient Rome and Greece, drawing insights from her extensive work, including her 2023 book Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient World.

The hour-long discussion and question panel with Harry Mount, editor of The Oldie, covered the Roman Empire’s origins, the nature of its rulers, methods of historical interpretation, daily life, the value of classical studies and comparisons between ancient and modern societies.

Beard consistently avoided answering the question “Who is your favourite emperor?” because of the oversimplification of complex figures.

She made comparisons between Roman emperors Augustus and Julius Caesar, and modern rulers such as President Donald Trump, believing that a one-man ruler in ancient times became a “necessary evil” to manage the territory, offering a practical solution despite its autocratic nature.

She said: “Rome became brutally successful, conjuring this huge empire which was trying to be governed with the institutions of a parish council. I think that one-man rule became a necessary evil, and the parish council couldn’t do it.

“They got a system which, for better or worse, solved some of the problems that they faced as leaders of this vast empire but whether it was for good or not is not for me to say.

“Julius Caesar was the first person in the west to put his head on a coin. Trump is also very visible in that way but he doesn’t put his head on the coins.

“You couldn’t escape from Augustus the same way you can’t escape from Trump. You only have to go on any bit of social media, and you’ll find him, it’s part of the playbook of modern imperialism and autocracy.”

Former sub-postmistress Jo Hamilton, a victim of the Post Office scandal, received a standing ovation in the town hall on Tuesday.

She was one of more than 700 sub-postmasters and mistresses who were wrongly prosecuted for theft and false accounting between 2000 and 2014, based on information from the faulty Horizon accounting system, installed by Fujitsu.

A standing ovation was last given in 2021 for covid scientists Dame Sarah Gilbert and Professor Catherine Green.

Mrs Hamilton ran a village post office in South Warnborough, Hampshire, from 2001 to 2006. She pleaded guilty to a lesser offence of false accounting in 2007, remortgaging her house in order to pay the Post Office £36,000.

She became one of the founding members of the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance in 2009, and in April 2021, her conviction was overturned.

Why Are You Here, Mrs Hamilton? is the title of her book, published in June. The title is derived from the words the judge used in their remarks during sentencing at Winchester Crown Court in February 2008.

Mrs Hamilton said: “It’s important that people see my journey because it reflects with hundreds of others, as we all have similar tales of the absolute misery of having no money and being accused of something we didn’t do.

“It’s an important message to tell people not to give up, always be truthful and be kind because everyone was so kind to me.”

The festival runs until Sunday.