Alexander Armstrong talks to Jack Meggitt Phillips about his new Evenfall book The Tempest Stone

Pointless host and Hey Duggee narrator Alexander Armstrong enthused a young audience at the Farnham Literary Festival with a talk about his second book Evenfall: The Tempest Stone.
He spoke for an hour in the Great Hall at Farnham Maltings on Saturday afternoon in conversation with fellow children’s author Jack Meggitt-Phillips, writer of the novel The Beast and the Bethany.
Alexander talked about the process of writing his books and shared some top tips to help anyone aspiring to emulate him.
These included asking four volunteers from the audience - Jacob, Seth, Robin and Rui - to pick an item from his mystery bag.
In turn they took a mirror, a little musical instrument, a notebook and a butterfly badge, and were asked to imagine what kind of magic each would produce as part of any story they might write.
The talk ended with a question and answer session. The last question - ‘Which of your two books is your favourite?’ - caused Jack to exclaim: “That’s like asking you to say who is your favourite child!”
Alexander - who has four children - said he was equally fond of both his Evenfall books, The Golden Linnet and The Tempest Stone, adding: “I think of them as two halves of the same book, as the second one starts about two seconds after the first one ends.”
Following the talk, Alexander and Jack signed books and posed for photographs with a steady stream of fans.
Asked what it was like to inspire the children and young people of Farnham to read, Alexander said: “Well it’s a great privilege to be here and really impressive, I must say - the audience were fantastic, they were just incredible.
“They sat very quietly and attentively for a full hour and then asked amazing questions at the end of it. I always love that, when they ask incisive and thoughtful, thought-provoking, questions.
“But it’s lovely just to talk a little bit about writing and the great pleasure that’s to be had in creating worlds, and I think we had some fun.
“We were trying to work out what various devices - magical devices - might be, and I thoroughly enjoyed that, so it’s been lovely to be here in Farnham.”
Alexander is famous among younger children as the narrator of Cbeebies show Hey Duggee, and he has a special voice for the role.
Duggee the dog leads The Squirrel Club, similar to a Beavers or Rainbows group in that the young members receive badges for completing different activities.
But while the other animal characters in the programme talk in English, Duggee only barks - to the secret amusement of Alexander.
He said: “The nice thing is I’m the only person who understands what Duggee’s saying, so when Duggee just says ‘Woof!’ I go ‘Oh, Duggee, stop it!’. I always like the idea that he’s said some things that are not really repeatable!”
Although Alexander had to leave soon after the talk, there was time for one last question - if the question on Pointless was ‘Name a Cbeebies voice actor’, would he like to be a pointless answer, or not?
He said: "I'd love to be an answer!"