Johnny Vegas set for Dublin Writers Festival

One of Britain’s most famous comedians (or his alter ego, Johnny Vegas, that is) will be in conversation with the comedy actress and writer Pauline McLynn as part of the Dublin Writers Festival next week.

It promises to be a riveting discussion. “My name is Michael Pennington and I am not a comic character,” reads the first line of his autobiography, Becoming Johnny Vegas, which tells a remarkable story about the comic’s dual identity.

Pennington, who is married to Irish producer and broadcaster Maia Dunphy, had an idyllic childhood in St Helens, Merseyside until, aged 10, he decided on a whim to join the priesthood. He emerged from the seminary, a den of mice and molestation, a year later a confused boy. Insecure and unable to mix properly, he began to nurture his ballsy, loudmouth stage alter ego, Johnny Vegas, which wowed the British comedy circuit for almost 20 years until he recently retired.

Ray Davies will chat with the novelist Joseph O’Connor about the art of songwriting and tales of debauchery from his times touring with The Kinks, some of which are captured in his recently published memoir-come-scrapbook, Americana: The Kinks, The Road and the Perfect Riff. He started the band 50 years ago with his brother (the pair enduring a fractious relationship); a year into their journey they took the US by storm, but, unfortunately, fell foul of the American Federation of Musicians, incurring a ban from touring America again until 1969, the result, according to the band’s drummer, Mick Avory, of “a mixture of bad management, bad luck, and bad behaviour.” Davies’s bad luck resurfaced in 2004 when he was the victim of a vicious mugging in New Orleans. He recklessly pursued his attackers after the assault, which led to a gunshot wound in his leg.

Laura Bates, who will discuss “Everyday Sexism” in a session chaired by Sinéad Gleeson, said recently in an interview: “Two years ago, I didn’t know what sexism meant”. She’s done a lot in the interim to inform the rest of us. In April 2012, she set up a forum on her Facebook wall to record the incidences of prejudice she — and her sisters — encountered as they went about their day. The complaints came flooding in: “On first day at Cambridge University, ancient don asked whether I had to ‘bend over’ to get in.”

Within 18 months, her project had expanded to 18 countries, and the publication of a book earlier in the year, Everyday Sexism.

Mark Graham spent every day for a year ferreting out a festival to attend in Ireland, adventures that he has captured in his book, A Year of Festivals. Every week, he rocked up at three festivals, including ones he won prizes at, like The All-Ireland Conker Championship, the All-Ireland Bucket Singing Championship, and a bog-snorkelling competition in Monaghan. It wasn’t all slumming, however, as his fourth-hand VW Camper carried him around the country. He had to don a tuxedo to escort a lass to Macra na Feirme’s Queen of the Land Festival.

There are a host of other interesting writers to enjoy at the festival’s 16th annual gathering, including poet Tom Paulin; the trio Paddy Moloney, Eamon Morrissey and Mary Russell jawing about aging; and Christine Dwyer Hickey engaging with a couple of writers from the “Korean Wave”, Jeong Mi-kyeong and Lee Kiho.