5 Speakers, 15 Minutes Each - February 2025

Harriet Walter is best-known as an actor, although she is also a published author. She has played 18 Shakespearean roles, mainly with the RSC, of which she is an honorary artist and governor. Harriet has also performed the works of Webster, Chekhov, Pinter, to name just a few, and created new roles in many other new works. Her most recent television work includes Succession, Killing Eve and The Crown. She was awarded a CBE in 2000 an Honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of Birmingham in 2001 and became a Dame in 2011. Her new book, She Speaks!, offers new parts for thirty of Shakespeare's women, letting them speak their minds, and reads between the lines to imagine what these women were really thinking.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist and the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s contemporary history series, The Long View, and host of the podcast Unholy. He is the author of twelve books, the latest being The Escape Artist. He has written nine thrillers, mostly as Sam Bourne, including The Righteous Men, a Sunday Times number one bestseller. His new picture book, King Winter's Birthday, with illustrations by Emily Sutton, is inspired by a story from author Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz, author of The Passenger.

Chloe Dalton is a writer, political adviser and foreign policy specialist. She spent over a decade working in the UK Parliament and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has advised, and written for and with, numerous prominent figures. She divides her time between London and her home in the English countryside. Raising Hare, her first book, chronicles her extraordinary encounter with an injured hare. It was selected as Hay Festival Book of the Year 2024, shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and a Critics Best Books pick for The Times, Financial Times, Guardian, Spectator and iNews.

Theresa Lola is a poet, writer, and creative practitioner. She was the appointed Young People’s Laureate for London in the year 2019-20. In 2018 she was the co-winner of the Brunel International African Poetry Prize. Her work is included in the OCR’s GCSE English Literature syllabus. As a practitioner she infuses poetry to deliver creative outcomes. She has worked on projects by the National Gallery, Dulwich Picture Gallery, and presented an audio documentary on BBC Radio 4. She has been commissioned by Selfridges, Rimowa, and Hush. Her second poetry collection, Ceremony for the Nameless (2024), is published by Penguin.