Five more days of events are planned as part of the Melbourne Festival. National theatre company Distraction will stage its comedy, the Merry Wives of Henry VIII, at the Royal British Legion at 7.30pm tonight. Baroque music ensemble Fiori Musicali perform at the parish church tomorrow.

1 GRAHAM GREENE FESTIVAL The ninth annual festival I features talks by Lord Hattersley and Patrick Marnham. Various venues, Berkhamsted (01442 866 694) Thur to 1 Oct 2 SHOWBUS The world's biggest bus rally includes several hundred buses, both historic and modern.

History: Roy Hattersley loves to write and relishes research, particularly when it yields the illuminating anecdote. In this large thematic survey of the years between 1900 and the outbreak of war in 1914, we are saved from tedium in some arid chapters by a good story.