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Letters That Changed The World

Letters grant us a glimpse into fascinating lives, whether through the eyes of a genius, a monster or of an ordinary person. Discover the bravery, beauty and visceral immediacy in letters by Michelangelo, Catherine the Great, Sarah Bernhardt, Rosa Parks, and Alan Turing.

Nothing beats the immediacy and authenticity of a letter. Letters grant us a glimpse into fascinating lives, whether through the eyes of a genius, a monster or of an ordinary person. Letters also resonate, often many years later, with people who were never meant to see them. They allow us to travel through time and space to share the thoughts of men and women from places, eras and cultures quite different from our own.

Following on from Intelligence Squared’s acclaimed events on great speeches and poetry, when Carey Mulligan, Simon Russell Beale, Helena Bonham Carter and other stars took to our stage, we now present Letters That Changed The World, based on award-winning historian Simon Sebag Montefiore’s new book Written in History: Letters that Changed the World. Joining him on stage will be No 1 bestselling novelist Kate Mosse. Together they will discuss letters by Michelangelo, Catherine the Great, Sarah Bernhardt, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, Virginia Woolf, Alan Turing and Leonard Cohen. Some are inspiring, some unsettling, others express foreboding and despair. Many celebrate love and sex.

A cast of performers, including Young Vic director Kwame Kwei-Armah, rising star Jade Anouka, Dunkirk actor Jack Lowden, and West End star Tamsin Greig, will bring the letters to life on stage. Join us and discover the bravery, beauty and visceral immediacy in these letters.


Speakers

Chair

Razia Iqbal

Journalist and broadcaster


Razia was special correspondent at the BBC for over three decades and from 2011 to 2023 anchored Newshour on the BBC World Service. She is currently teaching at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, where she holds the John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professorship.
Actors

Kate Mosse

Award-winning novelist, playwright, essayist and non-fiction writer, whose latest book is Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World


Award-winning novelist, playwright, essayist and non-fiction writer. She has written nine novels and short-story collections, including the multimillion-selling Languedoc Trilogy, The Joubert Family Chronicles, number one bestselling Gothic fiction The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist’s Daughter and the highly-acclaimed memoir An Extra Pair of Hands. She is the Founder-Director of the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Founder of the global #WomanInHistory campaign. Her latest book, part detective story, part family history and part dictionary of 1000 women missing from history is Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries: How Women (Also) Built the World. She is currently preparing a theatre tour for Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries for spring 2023 and working on the third novel in The Joubert Family Chronicles, a historical crime thriller set in 17th century France, Tenerife and South Africa for publication in July 2023.

Simon Sebag Montefiore

Prizewinning historian whose latest book is The World: A Family History


Prizewinning historian whose bestselling books have been published in over forty-eight languages. He has won prizes for both fiction and non-fiction: Catherine the Great and Potemkin was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and is being developed as a feature by Angelina Jolie. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar won the British Book Awards History Book of the Year Prize. Young Stalin won the Costa Biography Award (UK), the LA Times Book Prize for Biography (USA), Le Grand Prix de la Biographie Politique (France) and the Kreisky Prize (Austria).  

Jade Anouka

Actor


Award-winning actor who starred in the Donmar Warehouse’ recent Shakespeare Trilogy of Julius Caesar, Henry IV and The Tempest where she played Mark Anthony, Hotspur and Ariel respectively.

Tamsin Greig

Award-winning actor widely acclaimed for her stage performances


Award-winning actor widely acclaimed for her stage performances, perhaps most notably playing the role of Malvolia in the National Theatre’s 2017 production of Twelfth Night. Her television roles include Green Wing and Episodes, and on film she has starred in Tamara Drewe and The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Kwame Kwei-Armah

Artistic director of the Young Vic theatre


Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE is Artistic Director of the Young Vic Theatre and Artistic Advisor at Manhattan Theatre Club in New York.  He was previously Artistic Director of Baltimore Center Stage (2011-18) and Artistic Director of the Festival of Black Arts and Culture, Senegal (2010), where he wrote and directed the opening ceremony at Senghor stadium. As a playwright, Kwame was the first black Briton to have a play produced in London’s commercial West End (Elmina’s Kitchen). His triptych of plays was produced at the National Theatre, where he later created the online resource The Black Play Archive.

Kwame was Chancellor of the University of the Arts, London (2010-2015), is Patron of Ballet Black and The Black Cultural Archives, Chair of Warwick Arts Centre Advisory Board and a Trustee of the Tate and the founding Trustee Black Equity Organisation.  Kwame was awarded an OBE for Services to Drama in 2011, and in 2020 listed as one of 100 Great Black Britons.

Jack Lowden

Star of Dunkirk and Mary Queen of Scots


Scottish actor who has appeared in the BBC miniseries War & Peace, starred as an RAF fighter-pilot in Christopher Nolan’s film Dunkirk, and most recently as Lord Darnley in Mary Queen of Scots, opposite Saoirse Ronan.

 

Please note: actors may be subject to change