Shorelines – Stories from the Coast

Doors open 6.15pm - Start 6.30pm.

The Border Readers autumn 2025 tour sees the actors give intimate readings of fictional short stories set in Northumberland and Devon. The much loved coastlines of the two counties - with their distinctive islands, harbours, estuaries and beaches - are central to each narrative, providing the atmospheric settings against which the protagonists stories unfold.

Tony Glover’s The Weather Gleam illuminates Jonty and Violet’s rocky relationship during the course of a working weekend on Holy Island, as witnessed by Charlie, her faithful Capheaton terrier. A bitter sweet supernatural love story from the author of the Kitty Lockwood crime novel series.

A successful middle aged businesswoman is compelled by the smell of mud on the estuary to recall her pivotal role in an adolescent romance that had a deadly outcome…Ann Cleeves haunting tale Mud first appeared in the 2011 Murder Squad anthology Best Eaten Cold. Fans of Ann’s Two Rivers police detective series, set like this tale in her native north Devon, will particularly relish another great example of her compelling writing style.

Also set in two rivers territory and originally commissioned in 2018 by BBC Radio 4, Crossing the Bar is an evocative elegy from novelist and travel writer Linda Cracknell. Inspired by Tennyson’s classic poem of the same name it draws on her Devon family’s historic involvement in the coastal shipping trade. That’s a proud legacy maintained by Linda, a crew member of her local skiff rowing team.

Touch and Go is set mainly in Amble harbour. Singleton Jenny has been unexpectedly gifted the means to buy her very own yacht, but circumstances and superstitions combine to thwart her plans to set sail. Jo Scott – herself an experienced mariner – entertains with a warm hearted witty tale of one woman’s multi-layered voyage of discovery.

We’re particularly delighted that both the Northumberland coastal tales have been specially commissioned by the Border Readers for the 2025 tour.