Olia Hercules – Strong Roots: A Ukranian Family History Through War, Exile and Hope
2026-10-20 12:00 - 13:00 (Europe/London) | The Dorford Centre, 2 Bridport Road, Dorchester, Dorset, DT1 1RR, United Kingdom
‘I am writing this story without knowing its end: it begins long before I was born and will continue long after I die. I am writing this story to help myself heal and to make you understand.’

Strong Roots is the story of a century in Ukraine told through four generations of one extraordinary family. It takes us from years of Russification, to Olia’s grandmother’s deportation to snowy wastelands under Stalin, to her Aunt Zhenia’s school protest, to her own parents’ flight from Ukraine when their town was occupied in 2022. This is an ode to the land, to ideas of home and belonging, and to family stories and recipes passed down the generations – the tang of sour cherries, the best way to make borsch. It is an account of resilience in the hardest of circumstances. Strong Roots brims with hope and grief. It lays bare the compromises and betrayals of generations struggling and surviving through war, peace, invasion and exile. It is an uplifting reminder of how much the human spirit can endure when born from a land rich with strong roots.

Born in Kakhovka, in southern Ukraine, Olia Hercules trained as a chef and worked for Ottolenghi and as a recipe developer and food stylist. After the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Olia co-founded a global initiative to raise money for Ukraine #CookForUkraine, which has raised over £2 million to date. Olia is the author of four cookbooks, including Mamushka: Recipes From Ukraine and Beyond.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

David Lascelles – Out of Colditz
2026-10-20 14:00 - 15:00
A never-before-told perspective on the British experience at Colditz – one of themost infamous sites in Nazi Germany.

The grandson of a King, the son of the Viceroy of India, Churchill’s nephew. All held captive at the notorious Colditz prisoner of war camp, they were the Prominente: scions of the British establishment, and pawns in the hands of Nazi leaders.

As a German defeat loomed, the SS head of the POW camps Gottlob Berger made a pivotal decision: he would disobey direct orders and spare their lives. ‘Please remember what I have done for you when the war ends,’ he asked. This Nazi overseer, who would later be convicted of war crimes, held their future in his hands.

Eighty years later, David Lascelles – the son of George, Earl of Harewood, who would never have been born if his father had been executed – traces the Prominentes’ extraordinary journey and wonders who Gottlob Berger was and what motivated his fateful decision: compassion? Remorse? Or self-interest?David Lascelles, 8th Earl of Harewood, is a BAFTA-winning film and television producer. He is one of the founders of Heirs of Slavery, a campaign group that seeks to redress the horrors of the Transatlantic slave trade. He lives in Yorkshire. Out of Colditz is his second book.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Alexandra Shulman – Black Coffee and Red Lipstick
2026-10-20 16:00 - 17:00
Weaving ideas about our domestic and daily life with thoughts on style and the way wepresent ourselves, Alexandra Shulman combines anecdotes and observations from 25 years spent editing British Vogue and her current life as a freelance writer and commentator. She draws onher experiences as a magazine editor but also a mother, daughter, sibling, girlfriend,housekeeper and lover of shopping.

Alexandra left her job at Vogue in 2017 to embark on a different way of life and while thisis in no way a book of self-discovery it does touch on the question of things or patterns ofbehaviour that make us who we are?

From her quest for the perfect eyeliner, to why picnics are so delightful and our hair matters, friendship,siblings, gardening and grey hair will be explored with Alexandra’s characteristic witand incisiveness.

Alexandra Shulman was British Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief from 1992 to 2017 and was awarded the CBE in the 2018 New Year’s Honours list. She is currently a columnist for the Mail on Sunday, a contributor to a variety of newspapers and magazines and a Vice President of the London Library. She has written two novels, Can We Still Be Friends (2012) and The Parrots (2015) and Inside Vogue: The Diary of My 100th Year (2016).

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Simon Mayall - The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and The Caliphate
2026-10-20 18:00 - 19:00
From the taking of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1,300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy. Simon Mayall focuses on some of the most significant clashes of arms in human history: the taking and retaking of Jerusalem and the collapse of the crusader states; the fall of Constantinople; the sieges of Rhodes and Malta; the battle of Lepanto; the assault on Vienna, and the ‘high-water mark’ of Ottoman advance into Europe; and, finally, the Allied capture of Jerusalem in World War I, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the dissolution of the sultanate and the caliphate, and the formation of modern Europe, and the modern Middle East. The House of War offers a wide, sweeping narrative, encompassing the broad historical and religious context of this period, while focussing on some of the key, pivotal sieges and battles, and on the protagonists, political and military, who determined their conclusions and their consequences.

Simon Mayall is a former soldier in the British Army, and an acknowledged expert on the history of the Middle East, and of the Crusades. Much of his 40- year professional career was focussed on the Middle East, and he has strong family and academic interests in the region. His last appointments were as the British Government’s Defence Senior Adviser for the Middle East, and the Prime Minister’s Security Envoy to Iraq and the Kurdish Region. He is currently Chair of the Council of the National Army Museum.

John Wright – Grasslands
2026-10-21 10:30 - 11:30
A sparkling green field. A dull and scrubby patch of grass. One is the sanitised evidenceof monoculture, the other a world teeming with more life than you could ever imagine.Join John Wright, one of our best-known naturalists, as he uncovers the beauty andrich diversity of Britain’s grasslands. Bursting with mushrooms, lichen and wildflowers,home to butterflies, bees and beetles, and vital to foxes and birds alike, these grasslandsare part of our natural heritage.

From meadows to mires to heathlands, John Wright introduces them in all their variety:the history of how grasslands came to be, what can be found there, what we risk withtheir loss and what can be done to save what is left. Most of all, he shows why weshould care. Because grasslands are never just patches of grass.

John Wright is one of Great Britain’s best-known naturalists and leading experts onfungi. His books include A Spotter’s Guide to the Countryside, A Natural History ofthe Hedgerow and the bestselling The Forager’s Calendar. He lives in Dorset, near theglorious grassland of Hog Cliff.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Samira Ahmed – A Hard Day’s Night
2026-10-21 12:30 - 13:30
How did a film made to capture a pop phenomenon in real time become a genuine cinematic classic?Journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed explores how this beloved film captures both the band’s coveted charisma and the shifting cultural landscape of 1960s Britain.

A life-long fan, Samira first discovered the film at the age of 11 and then in 2023 she uncovered the earliest known complete concert recording of the Beatles, taken at Stowe School in 1963 which made headlines around the world. Blending documentary-style realism with a subversion of classnorms, the film not only reflects the Beatles’ role in reshaping celebrity and social identity, but also shaped Samira’s understanding of fame and the media as she embarked on a career in journalism. Samira examines its lasting legacy, showing how its portrayal of Beatlemania influenced generations and continues to serve as a powerful metaphor for modern celebrity culture.

Samira Ahmed is a journalist, writer, and BBC broadcaster. She presents Front Row on BBC Radio 4, Newswatch on BBC One, and has made acclaimed documentaries including Art of Persia (BBC Four), Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse, and I Dressed Ziggy Stardust (BBC Radio 4). In 2020, she was named Audio Presenter of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, and New Humanist, where she also writes a regular column. She is President of the Twentieth Century Society, which campaigns to preserve modern architecture and design. A Hard Day’s Night is her first book.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Simon Parker - The Wild Ride Home
2026-10-21 14:00 - 15:00
Outdoor enthusiast, cyclist and acclaimed travel writer Simon Parker was restless for a new adventure, but with a small baby his explorations needed to begin at home. He decided to cycle through all 15 of the UK’s national parks in the anniversary year of the first one’s founding, the Peak District. While each of the national parks offered beauty and surprises, all of them revealed the challenges of making space for nature on an overpopulated island. His days within the parks, from Dartmoor to Cairngorms, via the Yorkshire Dales and The Broads, could be idyllic or enraging. He explored wild and remote moors and mountain tops but also got stuck in plenty of holiday traffic. He developed an injury, walked where the bike wouldn’t go, accepted pints and campsite pitches, and talked to everyone he met. From campers, conservationists, walkers, landowners, farmers, small business owners, commoners, pony lovers, newcomers, tourists, birders and artists – everyone is seeking something different from the hills, dales and waters of the UK. Yet all share the urge for space, fresh air, beauty and the humbled humanity it brings. This is a page-turning, revealing perspective of the British and the wild-ish landscapes they love.

Simon Parker is a multi-award-winning travel writer and filmmaker who has reported from more than half of the world’s countries. He has cycled across the USA, produced films about endangered species in Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and writes for the Telegraph, Times and National Geographic. When he’s not writing books or newspaper articles he manages his own production company, Simon Parker Creative.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Anthony Seldon – Sunak at 10
2026-10-21 16:00 - 17:00
After almost a decade and a half of Tory rule, the 2024 General Election saw the Conservatives suffer their worst-ever defeat: they received 7.14 million fewer votes than in 2019; 23.7 per cent is their lowest ever vote share; and their current 121 MP contingent is their smallest since 1832. Meanwhile, the rise of Reform threatens the party’s very existence.

How did it all go wrong so quickly, following Boris Johnson’s record-setting win in 2019?

From taking office amidst the cost of living and energy supply crises and the panic caused by Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget, through the agenda-dominating Ukraine and Gaza wars and the Rwanda Asylum Plan, to the stunning 2023 local election results, Sunak at 10 is the definitive and jaw-dropping window into Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

Anthony Seldon’s is an educator, historian, writer and commentator. He is autor or editor of over fifty books on contemporary history, politics and education, including The Sunday Times bestsellers Johnson at 10 , Truss at 10, and The Path of Light.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Johnny Ball – Stories That Must Be Told
2026-10-21 18:00 - 19:00
Johnny Ball spent seventeen years working as a stand up comedian, and twenty years with BBC Television, where he wrote and presented twenty series of award winning programmes, including Play School, Think of a Number and Think Again, followed by five educational stage musicals, which played nationwide to many thousands of students. Here Johnny Ball charts his extraordinary journey from stand-up comedy to children’s television fame and beyond, sharing the highs and lows of his roller coaster career. Told with humour, resilience, and unforgettable stories that reveal a life lived in the spotlight.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Anthony Seldon – The Path of Light
2026-10-22 10:30 - 11:30
In 2021, Anthony Seldon, inspired by a fallen First World War soldier who dreamed of a ‘Via Sacra’ tocommemorate the war dead and stand as a marker for the triumph of peace, set out on a 1,000km walktracing the historic route of the Western Front. He went on to recount that story in the widely acclaimedThe Path of Peace. But there wasn’t to be lasting peace, with the continent falling into an even morehorrific war two decades later.

In The Path of Light, Seldon sets out to walk a new 1,300 km route from the same starting point atKilometre Zero to Auschwitz, discovering in the towns and villages through which he walks stories ofwomen and men who bravely protected the vulnerable and stood up to evil in the face of unimaginablebrutality during the Second World War.

As he ruminates on these ‘figures of light’, whose uplifting stories he encounters along his path, a pattern begins to emerge about how we can draw on their lives to build a better and more peaceful world, never more needed than now, with the ominous and increasing drumbeat of belligerence globally that month by month is the constant backdrop of his walk between 2023 and 2025. It proved a harder book to write than The Path of Peace. But it was a project he knew he had to complete, whatever the cost.

Sir Anthony Seldon is an educator, historian, writer and commentator. He is author or editor of over fortybooks on contemporary history, politics and education, including the Sunday Times bestsellers Johnsonat 10 and Truss at 10

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Jonn Elledge – 31 Inventions that Built Our World
2026-10-22 12:00 - 13:00
For over 10,000 years, the human race has been busy altering our environment and embracing ‘progress’, evolving seamlessly from hunter gatherers to the modern urban sophisticates we seeourselves as today. But what are the ideas and inventions that enabled humanity to become, by the early 21st century, a majority urban species for the first time? How did the essential infrastructure of modern life – the innovations that we barely even notice, but without which our world would fall apart – happen?

With his characteristic wit and boundless curiosity, Jonn Elledge invites us to join him on a fascinating and often surprising tour of the ideas and technologies that made modernity possible. From elevators to electric lighting, street numbering to sewers, he guides us through the history of civilisation itself.

Jonn Elledge is the author of the number-one bestseller, A History of the World in 47 Borders. A New Statesman and New World columnist, he is a regular on the podcasts Oh God, What Now? and the late, lamented Paper Cuts, and a frequent contributor to The i Paper, the Guardian and assorted other publications. He was previously an assistant editor at the New Statesman, where he created and ran its urbanism-focused CityMetric site, spending six happy years writing about cities, maps and borders and hosting the Skylines podcast. He has written three books, as well as over 200 editions of the Newsletter of (Not Quite) Everything. He lives in London, with the best dog in the world.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Victoria Hislop – The Wine Dark Sea
2026-10-22 14:00 - 15:00
Beloved, bestselling author Victoria Hislop explores the turbulence of the post-war era in Greece in this unforgettable and riveting new novel that will delight those fans who cherish The Island and The Figurine.

During three years of brutal civil war in Greece, thousands of children were caught in the chaos that swept across the country. Huge numbers were orphaned, many found themselves imprisoned alongside their mothers and others were left to fend for themselves. The Wine-Dark Sea follows the travails of a mother, searching for both a daughter who has been kidnapped and taken behind the Iron Curtain and a boy who, unbeknown to her, has been sold into adoption.

Victoria Hislop said, ‘I am excited about the publication of The Wine-Dark Sea, which is my tenthbook. The post-war period in Greece has many untold stories, buried through shame and a desireto forget. Research took me not just to obscure corners of Greece itself, but also outside it, to Hungary and the US. I continue to learn so much about Greece, in particular the lesser-known parts of its history, which are a source of great inspiration. The hidden stories of this country, that has made me its own, continue to fascinate me and provide rich material for fiction.ʼ

Victoria Hislop’s debut novel The Island has sold over 6 million copies. Her books have been translated into forty languages and Victoria was executive producer on the adaptations of three of her novels for Greek television. She divides her time between England and Greece and in 2020 was granted honorary citizenship by the President of Greece. She is Vice President of the British School at Athens, is on the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles and also on the Advisory Board for the Parthenon Project. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and holds Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Patra and Sheffield. In 2025, she was awarded the Byron Medal for Philhellenism at the Athens Academy and became the first woman to become an honorary member of the Society of Greek Writers.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Blake Morrison – Afterburn and On Memoir
2026-10-22 16:00 - 17:00
In Afterburn, Blake Morrison returns to poetry, his first calling, to offer scenes from his own life and the lives of others. In psychology, ‘afterburn’ refers to the time before a past event is assimilated – an idea that resonates through these poems (which themselves linger after reading) about memory and our attempts to articulate, shape or contain it.

Throughout the collection, not least in two extraordinary sequences – one about his sister, the otherabout Elizabeth Bishop – the poet sees with new eyes the turning points in a life’s accidental course.What holds his wise, touching, melancholy yet joyful poems together are the small intimacies that bindus to others, under time’s lengthening shadow: ‘you moved too fast for me to catch you / and so didthe years.’

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Julian Fellowes – In Conversation: My Life and Work
2026-10-22 18:00 - 19:00
Julian Fellowes is a multi-award-winning actor, writer, director, producer and Conservative peer. In conversation, Julian will talk about his early life, acting and the writing career that made him a household name. As creator of Downton Abbey, he has won three Emmy awards as well as the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Gosford Park. Other writing credits for film include Vanity Fair, Young Victoria, and The Gilded Age. His books include the international bestsellers Snobs and Past Imperfect. Julian Fellowes became Baron Fellowes of West Stafford in 2011. He lives in Dorset and London with his wife, Emma.

Julian Fellowes will be in conversation with Mark Chutter, Creative Director of the Thomas Hardy Society.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Dr Eleanor Drage – What If We Got AI Right?
2026-10-23 10:30 - 11:30
We’re confused about AI: what it is, and where it’s leading us – whether into a utopia or an apocalypse. Yet these obsessions thwart efforts to make meaningful change in an industry with very real problems.

Here, Dr Eleanor Drage, one of the world’s leading AI ethicists, unpicks the culture and ideas that drive the AI arms race, from billionaires trying to cheat death to biased police algorithms and state capture by big tech.

We need new language and new ideas to re-determine what AI is for and how we should use it. Only by bringing feminism, reparative justice and climate politics into the debate can we create a better future with machines.

Dr Eleanor Drage is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. One of the UK’s leading AI ethicists, her work has been covered by the BBC, the Guardian, Telegraph and Forbes, and she frequently speaks on radio and at AI conferences.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Ferdinand Addis – Conquest: The Roman Invasion of Britain
2026-10-23 12:00 - 13:00
An epic, visceral history of the Romans in Britain, from Caesar’s first invasion attempt in 55 BC to the fall of the Roman Empire, by the author of Rome: Eternal City.

Bringing together archaeology, anthropology, geology and history, Addis paints a vivid portrait of what life was like for Roman and Briton during these centuries, and examines how the face of Britain was changed in ways that can still be felt today. Britain wasn’t conquered in a day. Caesar invaded twice, but didn’t try to complete a conquest of the island. It was only when Claudius and his legions arrived in AD 43 that true colonization was possible. Forty years later, almost the whole of southern Britain was under Roman control, where it stayed until the final decline of the empire, the weakness of the colony’s defences and the quarrels of Roman generals brought the experiment to an end. Piecing together evidence from the often-propagandistic Roman literary sources – including the writings of Caesar, Tacitus and Livy – and making brilliant use of archaeological and anthropological research, Addis paints a vivid portrait of Roman and British life both in prehistoric times and in the first century AD. He brings the violence and intrigues of British tribal life into vivid relief, but also evokes the ways in which these diverse peoples lived, their monumental burial sites, their customs, their trade with continental Europe, their military organization and the kinds of war they practiced. Conquest is an exploration of the workings of empire at the deepest level, revealing how the struggle between Roman and Briton was fought on battlefields and in books, in forts and fields, between clashing visions of humanity, and rival gods. From Caesar’s first landing at the white chalk cliffs of the English Channel to Boudicca’s rebellion at Camulodnum, to legionaries darning their socks on Hadrian’s Wall, Conquest tells the Roman occupation of Britain as a story of domination and resistance, of cultures colliding and entwining, and of the slow transformation of a landscape and its people.

Ferdinand Addis read classics at Oxford, before embarking on a career as a journalist and author. His critically acclaimed 2018 book Rome: Eternal City was a Times Book of the Year. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

Tickets £14.00 (£10.00 Students)

Jeremy Hunt – Can We Be Rich Again?
2026-10-23 14:00 - 15:00
Is Britain stuck in a doom loop of higher debt and higher taxes? Or can we fix the British economy?Jeremy Hunt argues that getting out of Britain’s low growth is a solvable problem, and that we should approach the country’s economic future with optimism. Hunt asks the key questions: How deliverable are the changes we need by a Labour, Conservative or Reform government? How do we get the economy growing despite dangerous levels of debt? How do we sell long term reforms when our leaders have so little political capital? But countering pessimism needs solutions not just assertions, and they need to be realistic – plans that politicians can actually deliver in a democratic system and the majority of the electorate can get behind.

Jeremy Hunt was elected Conservative MP for South West Surrey in 2005. He was first appointed Secretary of State for Health in September 2012, then served as Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from July 2018 to July 2019, and Chancellor of the Exchequer from October 2022 to July 2024. Before his election as an MP, Jeremy ran his own educational publishing business, Hotcourses. He also set up a charity to help AIDS orphans in Africa in which he continues to play an active role.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Iain Gately - The Queen's Pirate
2026-10-23 16:00 - 17:00
A gripping biography of Elizabethan seafarer Thomas Cavendish, from his triumphantcircumnavigation of the world to his ill-fated final voyage.In June 1593, a ghostly ship drifted into an Irish harbour. Only 16 crewmen remainedalive, and the deck was littered with the dead. This was the melancholy homecoming of the ship Desire, one of a fleet of five that had left England two years before, fuelled by dreams of Spanish gold and the glory of exploring the globe. The expedition’s captain, thirty-one-year-old Thomas Cavendish,had been lost in the South Atlantic and was presumed dead: a victim of disease, mutiny,and an excess of ambition.Yet just five years earlier, in 1588, things had been very different. Cavendish had returned aboard the Desire triumphant from circumnavigating the world in record time, having taken a Manila galleon and secured the largest haul of treasure ever to fall into English hands. Cavendish sailed the Desire to Greenwich and paid homage to Queen Elizabeth I, staging a lavish banquet for her on board. Iain Gately traces the career of this remarkable – and unjustly neglected – Elizabethan mariner from spectacular triumphs to great betrayals and an ill-fated final voyage.

Iain Gately was raised in Hong Kong and studied law at Cambridge. He is the author of La Diva Nicotina, Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol, and Rush Hour: How 500 Million Commuters Survive the Daily Journey to Work.

Kathy Lette – The Sisterhood Rules
2026-10-23 18:00 - 19:00
The Sisterhood Rules:

Never let a man come between you

Share all your secrets

Live life to the fullest – girls just wanna have fun

For twin sisters Isabel and Verity, the sisterhood rules were shattered when Verity had an affair with Izzy’s husband. Unforgivable, right? Devastated by her sister’s betrayal, Izzy casts Verity into social Siberia.

But when their mother goes missing, Verity and Izzy are forced to come together again to find her. And then the estranged sisters’ problems only get bigger. Their mother has a new younger lover and where there’s a will. he’d clearly like to be in it.

Can they stop their mother making a dreadful mistake? And in doing so find a way to bury the pain of the past?

Full of laugh-out-loud humour and devastating pathos, Kathy Lette’s brilliant new novel takes us on a roller-coaster ride which proves that from pain comes healing, from honesty comes forgiveness, and that nothing is more important than your sisters.Kathy Lette is a celebrated and outspoken comic writer with an imitable take on serious current issues. One of the pioneering voices of contemporary feminism, she is the author of twenty novels that have been published in nineteen languages. She was writer in residence at the Savoy Hotel, and is an Ambassador for The National Autistic Society, Their World and Ambitious about Autism.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Dr Sian Williams – The Power of Anxiety: How to ride the worry wave
2026-10-24 10:30 - 11:30
Anxiety can have an immense power, affecting the way we think, feel and behave. Keeping us inside, away from people, places and opportunities. Making us question, doubt or criticise ourselves. Sending us into a sea of worry, which threatens to overwhelm us. But what if we stopped trying to fight the waves and, instead, learned to ride them?

This compelling, warm and accessible book looks at anxiety differently. It helps us understand how to drop the struggle with it and listen to what it is saying. And to start celebrating the unique sensitivity that makes us feel deeply and intensely – so we can let intuition guide us, not fear. To see sensitivity as our strength and anxiety as our tool. Not a trap.

Readers will discover how to live alongside their anxiety well, with tips, exercises, expert research and stories from those who’ve learnt how to ride the worry wave, including a multi-million album selling musician, a top author and a national TV presenter. Written by psychologist and broadcaster Dr Sian Williams, this book explores performance anxiety, perfectionism, social anxiety, panic, self-criticism and people-pleasing to present a new way to live with anxiety in kinder, better-informed and more understanding ways.

Dr Sian Williams is an award-winning broadcast journalist and chartered counselling psychologist. She’s spent years counselling those living with anxiety, both in the UK’s NHS and privately and has also worked with media organisations, governments and businesses to help prevent staff burnout. One of Britain’s most trusted broadcasters, having spent four decades in TV and radio, including eleven years hosting BBC Breakfast, Sian now presents BBC Radio 4’s Life Changing and BBC Radio 3 Unwind. Anxiety is her lifetime companion.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

John Sweeney – The Real Nigel Farage
2026-10-24 12:00 - 13:00
Nigel Farage is arguably the most consequential British politician of our age, and on current polling he is set to become the UK prime minister after the next general election. But aspects of his life story remain shrouded in mystery. Who is the real Nigel Farage, and does he possess the qualities to lead the country at a time of domestic turmoil and international peril? Based on interviews and reporting in the UK and across Europe by the fearless John Sweeney, The Real Nigel Farage will be published just ahead of the 2026 autumn party conference season as battlelines are drawn for the next election and thecontest to lead the Right intensifies.

John Sweeney is the Reform UK correspondent of The Nerve. As a reporter, first for the Observer and then for the BBC, he has covered wars in around 100 countries and has been undercover in the dangerzones of Chechnya, North Korea and Zimbabwe. The author of 16 books, including the Sunday Times bestseller The Killer in the Kremlin, he has challenged both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin face-to-face.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Simon Jenkins – A Short History of America: From Tea Party to Trump
2026-10-24 14:00 - 15:00
In 2026 the United States of America will celebrate its 250th birthday. How did this vast land, long inhabited by diverse indigenous cultures, come to be dominated by English speakers? How has it grappled with the stark contradictions between its ideals of liberty and the grim reality of its ongoingracial divide? This extraordinary collection of fifty distinct states has weathered immense – and recent – challenges, including a Civil War that was still raging as the first London Underground station opened. And yet the democratic project of the Founding Fathers continues to endure. How did this melting pot of peoples and ideas not only survive but rise to dominate global politics, commerce, culture and warfare? What insights does this rich history offer about an increasingly divided yet, in many ways, still thriving nation – and the world that moves to its rhythm?

A Short History of America is rich with vivid characters – from arrogant conquistadors and idealistic revolutionaries to imperial presidents – and the most foundational and formative events, from Colombus’ arrival and the Declaration of Independence, right through to the War on Terror and a former president facing criminal charges. This is a gripping must-read, based in part on years of close observation, for anyone seeking to understand our world today.Simon Jenkins is author of the bestselling A Short History of England, A Short History of Europe, Britain’s 100 Best Railway Stations, England’s Thousand Best Churches and England’s Thousand Best Houses. He is a former Editor of the Evening Standard and The Times, and columnist for the Guardian.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)

Alison Steadman – Out of Character: A Memoir
2026-10-24 18:00 - 19:00
The first memoir from the national treasure, critically acclaimed actress and much-loved Gavin &Stacey star. Candice Marie in Nuts in May, Beverly in Abigail’s Party, Mrs Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Betty in Fat Friends, Sue in Here We Go and Pamela in Gavin & Stacey: Just a few of the beloved, iconic characters brought to life by the magnificent Alison Steadman.

Growing up in post-war, working-class Liverpool, the young Alison – ever the entertainer – would address the world from the stage of her bedroom window, until she got a taste for performing in front of an actual audience at her progressive 1960s drama school. By the time she left, her mind was made up: she was going to be an actress! If only she could conquer the onstage giggling …

Always pushing boundaries – reclining naked on a sofa in her first role, embracing groundbreaking female characters from day one – Alison has deservedly found acclaim and recognition, succeeding inher TV and theatre career while juggling family life – a difficult feat for any working mother, but particularly for an actress in the twentieth century. From the nervy Mrs Bennet to the robo-dancing Pam-el-aah, Alison has proved herself again and again to be a comedy genius. Here, with her distinctive warmth and humour, she vividly recalls all the must- read moments of a life spent in and out of character.

Alison Steadman is one of the best-loved English actresses. She has achieved recognition across television, film and stage. She has won an Olivier, a National Society of Film Critic Award, and has been nominated for two BAFTAs. She lives in London with her partner Michael and is a keen birdwatcher and patron for the RSPB. Alison was awarded an OBE in 2000.

Tickets £16.00 (£12.00 Students)
