*Our PERFORMERS*

*2025*

HUGE DAVIES

Huge debuted his first show ‘The Carpark’ at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2019. A complete sell-out, it received multiple five-star reviews and an Edinburgh Award Nomination for Best Newcomer. The show was featured as Time Out’s No.1 comedy show to see, had three runs at the Soho Theatre following excessive demand and filmed as a special by LA based company 800 Pound Gorilla Media. His second show ‘Whodunnit’ and third ‘Album 4 My Ancestors (dead)’ were also fully sold out, received multiple five star reviews and is currently on a national tour. Huge appears on television frequently, including his own Channel 4 sitcom ‘The Artists’ which he created, wrote and starred in. 

PRVANYA PILLAY

Pravanya Pillay is a stand up comedian and writer. She delivers anecdotal comedy with surreal observations. She was I featured on BBC Three’s ‘Asian Network Comedy’, Comedy Central’s ‘Rhod Gilbert’s Growing Pains’, was a 2024 Sean Lock Award nominee, 2023 Chortle Award Best Newcomer Nominee and supported Olga Koch and Sophie Duker on tour. As a writer she has written for BBC Radio 4  (‘The Now Show’, ‘Best Medicine’ and ‘TL;DR’) as well as BBC Radio Wales (‘Beena & Amrit’ and ‘Welcome Strangers’).

ROSIE HOLT

Rosie Holt is best known for her alter-ego MP whose popular videos on social media have achieved more than 7 million views. She is the winner of the Chortle Social Media Award and a nominee for the BPG Emerging Creators Award. Her last show, That’s Politainment! toured around the UK - “tightly crafted and brutal political satire with Orwellian flourishes” -Evening Standard, 4 stars. Her first book, Why We Were Right; A catalogue of Conservative Successes ( "Hilarious and alarmingly close to the bone” - The New European) written as her MP alter-ego is available to buy in shops now. She has written for Prospect Magazine and The Byline Times.

KATE CHEKA

Kate Cheka is an award-winning comedian, writer and artist. Her debut hour received critical acclaim, a Soho Theatre run and was nominated for NextUp's Biggest Award in Comedy. Other accolades include winner of the Funny Women Awards 2023, regional finalist BBC New Comedy Awards 2022 and Chortle Best Newcomer nominee 2024.

Laila Woozeer

Laila Woozeer is an award-winning writer, musician and performer based in London.Laila has performed and composed for Future Cinema; BBC; Marie Claire; Barbican; Queen Elizabeth’s Hall and written for The Guardian, Mashable, Buzzfeed, Stylist, Metro, and gal-dem among others. Laila’s book Not Quite White, a magical realism memoir about being mixed race, was released 2022 (Simon and Schuster).

HARDEEP MATHARU

Hardeep Matharu is a journalist, writer, and speaker. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Byline Times – the independent investigative news site and monthly print newspaper covering ‘what the papers don’t say’. Her work focuses on the forces that shape us: identities, politics, culture, the media. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a John Schofield Trust Senior Fellow. Hardeep sits on the board of the ‘Values in the Media’ project established by the Common Cause Foundation. She is a judge of the annual Orwell Society/NUJ Young Journalists Award.

Names

TBC

Hook UP Culture & THE FUCKAROUND FIVE

The Hook Up Culture house band are an ever-evolving entity of some of the most talented, interesting and frankly, hottest, musicians around. FF members have won numerous awards and played with the likes of Cher, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, and Mickey Mouse. Studying at Berklee, RCM, Murcia Conservatoire, Guildhall, our crew have performed at Glastonbury, the 02, St Patricks Cathedral NY, Madrid and Barcelona Jazz Festivals, Caesars Palace Las Vegas to name just a few.

DJ Smutty

Of legendary punk-rockabilly band Levi and the Rockats 

The People's Friends - HOLDING IMAGE

Brian Cathcart is professor of journalism at Kingston University London and was a founder of the Hacked Off campaign. He served as specialist adviser to the commons media select committee in 2008-10. Irish by background, he was a journalist at Reuters, the Independent papers and the New Statesman, and has written books about the murders of Stephen Lawrence and Jill Dando, as well as on the history of nuclear science

Naz Shah MP

Naseem Shah is a British Labour Party politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West since 2015. She served in the Opposition frontbench from 2018 to 2023, most recently as Shadow Minister for Crime Reduction. Before being elected as an MP, Shah was the chair of mental health charity, Sharing Voices Bradford, and had previously worked as a carer for disabled people, as an NHS Commissioner and a director for a regional association supporting local councils. She has campaigned extensively in support of social justice and human rights causes.

SARAH CHURCHWELL

Sarah Churchwell (born May 27, 1970) is a professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK. She has appeared on British television and radio and has been a judge for the Booker Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Women's Prize for Fiction, and the David Cohen Prize for Literature. She is the director of the Being Human festival and the author of three books. In April 2021, she was long listed for the Orwell Prize for Journalism.

Jamie Kelsey Fry

Jamie Kelsey Fry was a teacher for twenty years in secondary schools across London. In 2010 he published the Rax Active Citizenship GCSE textbook with New Internationalist. The veteran flagship for independent media employed him to work on raising their profile. This included becoming a regular commentator on the mainstream news, providing a non partisan but populist and Internationalist perspective, covering over 200 segments on broadcast television and radio since 2010. Jamie is on the advisory board for the International Modern Media Institute and a trustee for the UK Youth Climate Coalition.

Dr. Brian Klaas

Dr Brian Klaas is an Associate Professor in Global Politics at University College London, an affiliate researcher at the University of Oxford, and a contributing writer for The Atlantic. He was recently named one of the 25 “Top Thinkers” globally by Prospect Magazine. Klaas is the author of five books, including Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters (2024) and Corruptible: Who Gets Power and How It Changes Us (2021). In addition to Fluke and Corruptible, Klaas authored three earlier books: The Despot's Apprentice: Donald Trump's Attack on Democracy (2017); The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding & Abetting the Decline of Democracy, (2016) and How to Rig an Election (2018). 

Urban Wilderness CIC

Urban Wilderness CIC is a women-led community interest company based in Longton, Stoke on Trent. Through radical joy, living heritage and world-class arts, they reimagine public spaces with and for the community. Co-directors Isla Telford, Laurel Gallagher and Jenny Harper produce Longton Carnival and Pig Walk Parade, which brought 30,000 visitors to the town this year. In this panel discussion, they’ll be joined by community members to share how feminist and circular economic principles are transforming a place often associated with decline into one of celebration, creativity and connection. Expect honesty, hope and grassroots energy.    

SAM BRIGHT

Sam Bright is Investigations Editor of Byline Times, having led the newspaper's coverage of Government corruption during the pandemic. He previously worked as a reporter and producer for BBC radio and TV. His first book, Fortress London, is out this April.

Asif Kapadia

Asif Kapadia (born 1972) is a British filmmaker. Kapadia is best known for his trilogy of narratively driven, archive-constructed documentaries Senna, Amy and Diego Maradona. Amy (2015), based on singer Amy Winehouse, had its world premiere at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, and it is the highest-grossing British documentary of all time at the UK box office. Kapadia directed the documentary film Senna (2010), based on Ayrton Senna (famous for his achievements in motor racing), which won multiple awards,

Peter Geoghegan

Peter Geoghegan is an Irish writer, broadcaster and journalist. His journalism has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, the London Review of Books and many other publications. He was openDemocracy‘s UK investigations editor from 2018 to 2021 and was nominated for a 2019 and 2020 British Journalism award and the Paul Foot award in 2019 and 2021 (twice). Peter’s most recent book, the Sunday Times best-selling Democracy for Sale: Dark Money and Dirty Politics, was published in August 2020 by Head of Zeus.

Dawn Butler, MP

Dawn Butler is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament or Brent Central since 2015. Dawn was named the “most promising feminist under 35” by New Statesman magazine and was honoured as MP of the year at the 2009 Women in Public Life Awards. Since returning to Parliament Dawn was awarded two Patchwork Foundation awards, having been voted People’s Choice 2016 Labour MP of the Year and next receiving the Overall MP of the Year award 2017. In 2020 named one of the 25 most influential women in the UK by Vogue.

Urban Wilderness CIC

Urban Wilderness CIC is a women-led community interest company based in Longton, Stoke on Trent. Through radical joy, living heritage and world-class arts, they reimagine public spaces with and for the community. Co-directors Isla Telford, Laurel Gallagher and Jenny Harper produce Longton Carnival and Pig Walk Parade, which brought 30,000 visitors to the town this year. In this panel discussion, they’ll be joined by community members to share how feminist and circular economic principles are transforming a place often associated with decline into one of celebration, creativity and connection. Expect honesty, hope and grassroots energy.    

LIZZIE CHO

Lizzie is CEO of Ladbroke Grove based charity Nova New Opportunities, the community partner for the festival. She is a teacher, executive coach and facilitator with an academic background in linguistics, pedagogy, psychology & neuroscience. Lizzie is passionate about challenging structural inequality and connecting people across boundaries to work in ways that are congruent with a positive future for people and the planet.

MARINA PURKISS

Marina Purkiss is a Political commentator, writer and campaigner.  She has over 150,000 Twitter followers who’s been featured on Channel 5's Jeremy Vine show, Byline TV as well as on podcasts for State of the Markets, Wright on the Nail, and The State of Politics.

DR MEENAL VIZ

Dr Meenal Viz is a writer and hospital doctor who also host’s a podcast called Meenal’s world.

AMY HALL

Amy hall is co-editor at New Internationalist magazine. Her work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, Red Pepper, The Ecologist, and openDemocracy where she wrote a column looking at the intersection of the environment, corporate power, Brexit and the British state. Amy has reported on social and environmental justice, activism, travel, politics and the arts from across the UK, Cambodia, India, the US and Belize.

PENNY PEPPER

A genre-defying and versatile writer, Penny Pepper’s work is a mixture of the quirky and the lewd, with a focus on examination of difference and identity. She wrote the taboo-breaking book Desires Reborn in 2012 and in 2013 she won a Creative Futures Literary Award.

In September 2014 her one-woman spoken word show, Lost in Spaces, premiered to strong reviews at Soho Theatre and is due to tour in Autumn 2015. As a performance poet, she has performed over the UK, including London, Edinburgh and further afield in New York.

Besides recent guest slots on Newsnight, Sky News, BBC Radio5Live Hitlist, and columns for The Guardian.

ALASTAIR MORGAN

PAUL MASON

Paul Mason is a journalist, writer and film-maker. His latest book How To Stop Fascism: History, Ideology, Resistance describes the rise of the modern far-right, its colonisation of conservatism and right-wing populism, and the danger it poses amid the wider process of democratic decay. It argues that, faced with the danger of a second fascist era, the centre and left should unite around the defence of democracy and the rule of law, and for tough legislation to limit the activities and funding of fascist groups, and for the creation of a grass-roots anti-fascist ethos in society.

OLIVER BULLOUGH

Oliver Bullough is a journalist and author from Wales who moved in 1999 to Russia to work as a journalist. He worked first for local newspapers in St Petersburg and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan), then for Reuters. He stayed in Moscow, mainly reporting on the war in Chechnya, until 2006.

Since leaving Reuters, he has written three books. The first - Let Our Fame be Great - is about the peoples of the North Caucasus, and his travels to find their scattered communities. The second -The Last Man in Russia - is a biography of a dissident Orthodox priest, whose life closely mirrors that of the Russian nation in the 20th century, and sheds light on the demographic tragedy of modern Russia.

The third is called Moneyland, and tells the story of how the world's super-rich have broken free of democratic control, and formed their own nomadic global community.

GERAINT DAVIES, MP

Geraint Davies is a British politician who is the Labour Co-op Member of Parliament for Swansea West. Previously, Davies was the Labour Party MP for Croydon Central from 1997 to 2005. He had also served as the Leader of Croydon London Borough Council.

IAIN OVERTON

Iain Overton is an investigative journalist and filmmaker, Executive Director of the London-based charity Action on Armed Violence and regularly writes for the Guardian. Prior to joining AOAV, Iain worked as a journalist for the BBC, ITN, and Al Jazeera, and worked with The Independent, The Daily Telegraph, and The Sunday Times. For his journalism, Iain has been awarded two Amnesty Media Awards, a Peabody, a BAFTA Scotland, a One World Award, a Prix Circom, and three RTS nominations. He is also a lecturer in human rights investigations at Birkbeck and Edinburgh Napier Universities.

GUN BABY GUN: A BLOODY JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD OF THE GUN, was published by Canongate in January 2016 and was shortlisted for CWA Non-Fiction Dagger.

ELIOT HIGGINS

Eliot Higgins is the founder of Bellingcat and pioneer of online open source investigation, a new investigative methodology that has significantly impacted a range of fields and specialisations, from journalism to justice and accountability. Starting as a blogger and entirely self-taught, Higgins' work has now opened up new ways to investigate a wide range of topics, with Higgins' own investigative work covering topics such at the downing of Malaysian Airlines 17 over Ukraine in July 17, chemical weapon use in Syria and the application of these new investigation techniques to the work of organisations like the International Criminal Court, where Higgins' is part of the Technology Advisory Board.

SIAN NORRIS

Sian Norris is a writer, journalist and feminist activist. She is the founder and director of the Bristol Women's Literature Festival, and the Byline Times’ Chief Social and European Affairs Reporter.

BRITTANY KAISER

A native of Chicago, Illinois, Brittany Kaiser became an impassioned advocate for politics at a young age, spending most of her career working for progressive political campaigns and human rights organizations. She holds degrees in human rights law and international relations from The University of Edinburgh in Scotland, The University of London’s Birkbeck College, and London’s Middlesex University. Brittany worked for Cambridge Analytica in the UK and the U.S. for three and a half years before blowing the whistle on her former employer and the unethical business practices of the global data industry. She is the primary subject of the Netflix Original documentary, The Great Hack, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Brittany is the co-Founder of the Digital Asset Trade Association (DATA) and, with the fundamental belief that data rights are human rights, is focused on using her expertise to advance legislative reform to protect the rights of individuals to control their own digital assets, such as personal data and blockchain tokens. 

JAZZ BHOGAL

Jazz is Assistant Director for Health & Wellbeing and Children & Young Londoners at Greater London Authority.

GEMMA ABBOTT

Legal Director at the Good Law Project, using the law to hold Government to account, and to fight for social justice and equality.

Jonathan Lis is deputy director of the pro-EU think tank British Influence, and a political writer and commentator.

KYLE TAYLOR

Kyle Taylor has spent his career working on issues surrounding data, democracy and the impact of the digital age on society. He is an expert on digital privacy and data issues and acts as Director of Fair Vote UK. Kyle is the author of the Byline-published "The Little Black Book of Data and Democracy" - a beginner's guide to social media and society, which is aimed at adult audiences. He also co-authored "What is the Internet? Let's Go Online" to offer children and parents an accessible way to introduce these complex topics to young people so they are prepared for the digital world.

DR BENTE SCHELLER

Dr. Bente Scheller is head of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Heinrich Boell Foundation, a political foundation close to the German Green Party. Before that, she was head of the foundation’s offices in Lebanon (2012-2019) and Afghanistan (2008-2012). She holds a PhD of FU Berlin and was posted at the German embassy in Damascus from 2002 to 2004. In February 2013 she published her book „The Wisdom of Syria's Waiting Game: Foreign Policy Under the Assads“. Bente Scheller is Marshall Memorial Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College, London/UK.

SARAH CHURCHWELL

Sarah Churchwell is Professor in American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, where she directs the UK’s national festival of the humanities, the Being Human Festival.  She is the author of Behold, America: A History of America First and the American Dream (2018), Careless People: Murder, Mayhem and The Invention of The Great Gatsby (2014), and The Many Lives of Marilyn Monroe (2004), recently adapted into a recent four-part CNN documentary narrated by Jessica Chastain (January 2022) and featuring Churchwell. 

Her latest book is The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells, forthcoming from Bloomsbury/Head of Zeus in July 2022. She comments widely on arts, culture, and politics in print, television, radio, and film, including the New York Review of Books, Guardian, Prospect, TLS, New Statesman, Financial Times, Sunday Times, New York Times, and Spectator, among many others. She was co-winner of the Eccles British Library Writer’s Award in 2015, named by Prospect magazine one of the world’s Top Fifty Thinkers in 2019, and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2021 for her writing on the history of American fascism.

DR MEENAL VIZ

You may already know of Dr Meenal Viz from her activism on better PPE for NHS staff during the pandemic. Whilst six-and-a-half months pregnant, she held a one-woman protest to campaign for the protection of healthcare workers.

Throughout the first lockdown, she took the government to court after healthcare workers were not receiving adequate protection to deal with the pandemic. Her landmark case meant that she changed the law on the guidance to protect healthcare workers, especially those from ethnic minority groups.

After challenging the government, Dr Viz has been working with the United Nations to help get the world vaccinated. She also hosts a podcast, Meenal's World where she speaks to change-makers, activists, and authors. Through these conversations, she hopes to encourage more conversations on creating positive change in society.

AMY HALL

Amy Hall is a co-editor at New Internationalist, an independent magazine covering global social and environmental justice stories. Amy edited the March/April edition on the long-standing movement to abolish prisons, police and the systems that support them.

GAVIN ESLER

Gavin Esler is a journalist, TV presenter and author (most recently) of ‘How Britain Ends’ on how carelessness and incompetence are seeing the UK drift apart.

STEPHEN KINSELLA
Stephen was an EU antitrust lawyer for nearly 40 years, mostly working in Brussels. Since retiring he has established Clean Up The Internet to campaign on the Online Safety Bill, is deputy chair of Reprieve which campaigns against the death penalty and is on the board of Hacked Off.  He was awarded an OBE in 2002 for his services as President of the British Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Chair of the Brussels Shakespeare Society.  He lives in Stroud.

MATTHEW BISHOP

Matthew Bishop is an award-winning author, UN advisor and global leader in sustainable development. Matthew was a writer and editor at The Economist for over 25 years, including a decade as the magazine’s New York Bureau Chief. He later joined the Rockefeller Foundation to lead the Bellagio Center. He cofounded the Social Progress Index and #givingtuesday, and is a visiting fellow at the LSE Marshall Institute.

TIM WALKER

Tim Walker is a playwright, author, broadcaster and British Press Award-winning journalist. He has worked in staff positions on The Observer, the Daily Mail and the Sunday Telegraph. More recently, he has written columns for the Daily Mirror, and, currently, The New European. He stood briefly as the Lib Dem parliamentary candidate in Canterbury in the last election. Star Turns, his latest book, is an anthology of interviews he conducted with leading actors over the past 30 years. The run of Bloody Difficult Women, his debut play at the Riverside Studios in west London, was extended earlier this year due to popular demand. It is now available online at https://www.bloodydifficultwomen.co.uk

PETER TATCHELL

Peter Tatchell has campaigned for human rights, democracy, global justice and LGBT freedom for 55 years.His human rights activism resulted in him being badly beaten by President Mugabe's bodyguards in 2001 and by Russian neo-Nazis in 2007. He is Director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation: www.PeterTatchellFoundation.org