While TED talks are a chance to hear from some of the world’s most influential figures and learn about a wealth of different topics, there’s something special about ditching the screen and booking a ticket to hear those who inspire you speak in person. Each month, the Culture Whisper team round up the most exciting talks happening in London to book now.
Actress-turned activist Emma Watson is in conversation with 2018 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege, at the Emmanuel Centre in London on 15 May. The talk, for which tickets are now available, is a chance to hear Dr. Mukwege speak about his work campaigning to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of armed conflict, and a rare chance to hear Watson speak about her own work as an activist and Global Goodwill Ambassador for the U.N.
PRICE: £32 - £45
Voices At The Table, the podcast hosted by Anna Sulan Masing and Miranda York, is hosting its 12th live event, this time returning to the Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green. In true VATT fashion, the evening consists of readings and performances based around food, and brings together a range of voices across the literary, performance and food worlds. Among the nine guests speaking at the event are author, journalist and podcaster Elizabeth Day; the River Cottage’s Gill Meller; and chef, food writer and TV presenter Ravinder Bhogal.
During the interval, attendees can enjoy small bites from a menu curated by chef Simon Shand. While those who are hungry afterwards can tuck into Simon’s special At The Table menu, featuring a main dish and glass of wine pairing for £15.
PRICE: £20
Margaret Atwood’s popular dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which was first published in 1985, found a whole new audience when it was adapted for TV in 2017. This year – more than 30 years since the book was published – Atwood is publishing a sequel: The Testaments. To celebrate the book’s release, Atwood is doing a six-day tour around the UK to talk about the book. The tour begins at the National Theatre in London on 10 September – the day of the book’s release. The talk is being broadcast in over 1,000 cinemas around the world.
PRICE: £15 - £25
Book tickets
Sally Rooney is in conversation with Kishani Widyaratna at St George’s Church, in a talk hosted by the London Review Bookshop. This is a chance to hear the author talk about her bestseller Normal People, and perhaps even ask any burning questions you have about the novel and its engrossing protagonists.
PRICE: £12
Artist Chantal Joffe and writer Olivia Laing are in conversation with fashion journalist Charlie Porter at Victoria Miro. The talk is a celebration of both Joffe’s exhibition at the gallery and the publication of two new books: The Front of My Face by Joffe and the paperback issue of Crudo by Laing.
PRICE: FREE
Click here to RSVP
Following on from his acclaimed retrospective at Tate Britain, British war photographer Sir Don McCullin is in conversation with multi-award winning foreign correspondent Fergal Keane OBE at Kings Place this April. The event is a chance to hear from the man behind the photos, whose 60-year career as a photojournalist has seen him put his life on the line in war zones across the world, and document poverty throughout Britain. The event is produced by Penguin Live and McCullin will be signing copies of his 2018 book The Landscape on the night.
PRICE £25 - £30; £55 - £60 with book
Author and former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo began writing stories in the early 70s, inspired by the primary school children he taught in Kent. Today, he’s written over 130 books, including The Butterfly Lion, Private Peaceful and War Horse, which has been adapted into a long-running stage production by the National Theatre and a film directed by Steven Spielberg. In celebration of his 75th birthday, Morpurgo is being interviewed by award-winning actor and comedian Katy Brand. As well as speaking about his own life and what nearly 50 years of writing has taught him, Morpurgo is reading live extracts from his most treasured stories.
PRICE: £25
Acclaimed chef and cookery writer Yotam Ottolenghi joins food writer and founder of TastEd Bee Wilson and professor of genetics Tim Spector to ask three big questions: how do we learn to taste? What influences our taste? And what role do upbringing, genes or gut microbes play in shaping how we take pleasure in food? The talk is part of the British Library’s ongoing Food Season.
PRICE: £20/£17 concessions
Head to the British Library for an evening of reflections from two of Britain's best-loved women from the worlds of food and music: chef, author and former Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain, and radio broadcaster Sara Cox. The pair reflect on their upbringings, careers, the roles they’ve had to play along the way, and what it means to be a working woman in the public eye. The talk is part of the British Library’s ongoing Food Season.
PRICE: £20/£17 concessions
The technological theme in the Southbank's Literature Festival this year continues, as Jeanette Winterson’s new novel Frankissstein asks: ‘What will happen when homo sapiens are no longer the smartest beings on the planet?’ Winterson will take to the stage to discuss her latest, technological take on themes her previous work has addressed: sexuality, identity and creation.
PRICE: TBD
Join Carol Jacobi, curator of Tate Britain’s Van Gogh exhibition (opening 27 March) for an in-depth dissection of the exhibition. The talk is a chance to hear about Van Gogh’s passion for graphic art and prints, and the inspiration he took from the streets of London – notably, from the literature of Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, and the works of John Constable and John Everett Millais. The hour-long talk will be followed by a private view of the exhibition.
PRICE: £28/£24 concessions
Hear Michael Zee, the man behind Instagram account Symmetry Breakfast, talk about his inspiration for – and curation of – the hugely successful page. Zee’s pictures of the elaborate and identical dishes he makes for himself and his partner Mark have become covetable food porn for his online followers. Zee has gone on to create a Symmetry Breakfast book, and his creations feature in the V&A’s FOOD: Bigger than the Plate exhibition.
PRICE: Free
The RA’s Festival of Ideas returns for a second year with a host of influential speakers – from artist Grayson Perry and children's author Dame Jacqueline Wilson, to Young Vic artistic director Kwame Kwei-Armah. The festival, which runs from 2 – 6 May this year, once again takes place between the RA’s Clore Learning Centre and Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, and most events are followed by an audience Q&A.
PRICE: varies per talk
To celebrate his 80th birthday in a somewhat unconventional way, multi-award winning actor Sir Ian McKellen is touring around the country performing 80 one-night solo shows in 80 different theatres. The performances themselves promise an eclectic mix of material – from revived snippets of some of Sir Ian’s best-loved roles, to anecdotes from his 60-year career and recitals of gay poetry. Sir Ian begins his tour with 16 performances in London; follow the link below to find out where he’s performing.
PRICE: £15 - £45 (All profits will be given to charities sponsored by each individual theatre)
Bestselling author, screen writer and social commentator Bret Easton Ellis is participating in an in-depth conversation at the Bridge Theatre ahead of the publication of his first non-fiction book: White. The controversial novelist, who began his career in 1985 with Less than Zero and created an icon in American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, has now turned his attention to commenting on the failures of our age in as incendiary terms as he did in the eighties.
White combines personal reflection with social observation, moving from the internet, to freedom of speech, to the possibility of authenticity today.
PRICE: £20-30
Gina Miller, the British-Guyanese Businesswoman who took the UK government to court in 2016 over its threat to trigger Article 50 with no parliamentary approval, has found herself in the centre of the storm that is the Brexit debate ever since. Both championed by those on one side and finding herself the subject of racist and threatening abuse by those on the other, she maintains her actions spring from her desire to preserve democratic principle, not partisan politics. However, she has also recently made no attempt to hide her belief that the UK has been and continues to be on a dangerous and disastrous path.
As she discusses her new book Rise: Life Lessons in Speaking Out, Standing out and Leading the Way, Gina will also discuss her struggle to improve transparency and accountability in both the political and business worlds, as well as the charity sector.
PRICE: £20-30
Editor of the massively successful Poem for Every Day of the Year anthology, and its follow-up A Poem for Every Night of The Year, poetry anthologist Allie Esiri has recently been turning her attention to the history of women's poetry. Her inclusions have taken in Enheduanna (history's first recorded poet), Maya Angelou, Carol Ann Duffy and new writing.
Drawing from her first two anthologies, Esiri presents and participates in a live reading with a host of superb actors and readers. Past events, held at the National Theatre among other venues, have included Helen McCrory, Indira Varma and Joanna Lumley. The full cast will be announced soon.
PRICE: £15-25
Robert Macfarlane’s work focuses on landscapes. Building on his previous bestsellers, which plumb the depths of the UK’s natural history, Macfarlane’s latest book Underland is a globetrotting exploration of ‘the worlds beneath our feet’. At the Southbank Centre, Macfarlane will talk about his findings: from the mysterious ways that trees communicate to the depths of Greenland’s ancient glaciers.
PRICE: £15
On International Workers’ Day, novelist Kit de Waal will chair a conversation with Louise Doughty and Katy Massey on what it means to be working class in Britain today. Doughty and Massey are both contributors to de Waal's new anthology Common People, which brings together 33 contributions from working class writers on their experiences.
PRICE: £7
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