CHILDREN are in for an extraordinary treat at this year’s Dulverton Exmoor Literary Festival with an appearance by Jack Meggitt-Phillips.

The scriptwriter, presenter, and internationally best-selling author whose debut children’s series ‘The Beast and the Bethany’ has been translated into more than 30 languages, has had a major film deal announced.

He will bring to the festival the first book in his new series ‘Jekyll vs Hyde: The Potion of Doom’.

The book will feature in an interactive event for children on Monday, November 16, the last of the festival’s four days.

In 1886, Dr Jekyll drank a potion which created a super-powered monster named Mr Hyde.

In 2026, a spoiled, cunning boy named Henrik Jekyll rediscovers the potion, and accidentally unleashes a brand new Hyde who will change his life forever…

Children will be welcomed to the laboratory of Jack Meggitt-Phillips, a laugh out loud carnival of chaos, where young readers will be given the skills they need to create their own monstrously funny stories.

Jack will introduce his book and give a whistlestop history of Victorian London which inspired the spine-chilling original classic.

There will be dramatic readings with props and Jack and the children will together create a new monster, which everybody can use to create stories of their own.

The event will take place from 10 am to 12 noon and is for children aged eight to 13 years.

Festival organisers will be contacting all local schools with an invitation, but anybody who would like their children or educational group to be involved, should email [email protected] as soon as possible.

An under-13s writing competition will again be held as part of the festival, with this year’s theme ‘Footprints on Exmoor’.

Entries up to 500 words should be submitted by October 23 to be judged by local children’s author and festival supporter Emily Lloyd-Gale.