The comedian, writer and podcaster Adam Buxton first burst onto our TV screens 30 years ago. He and his friend Joe Cornish created The Adam and Joe Show, which featured pranks, songs and re-enactments of famous films like Titanic and Trainspotting using their childhood stuffed toys. Along with work on radio and film, an eye for the weird and wonderful quirks of music videos, and a multi-award winning interview podcast, he has also written two memoirs. The first, Ramble Book, included a very poignant account of his father’s final months, when he lived with Adam and his family until his death at the age of 91.
More recently, his book I Love You Byeee! includes reflections on losing his mother – as he says, ‘to death – we didn’t get separated in a shop.’ And both books include plenty of musings on growing up and his many personal obsessions. Adam's musical choices include Ravel, Grieg and Thelonious Monk.
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Philip Hoare
Philip Hoare is an award-winning writer whose books often describe the lure of the sea, the strange and beautiful creatures that live in it and the inspiration artists have found in its murky depths. His book Leviathan won the Samuel Johnson Prize: it drew on his lifelong obsession with whales, which began with the gigantic skeletons in the Natural History Museum and continued with his own encounters with them at sea. His most recent book, William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love, traces Blake’s enduring influence on numerous poets, writers, film-makers and musicians. He’s also written about Noel Coward, the British socialite Stephen Tennant and the Netley Military Hospital on Spike Island, near Southampton. His musical choices including Prokofiev, Britten and Copland. Producer Clare Walker
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Emma Rice
The theatre director Emma Rice is renowned for her bold stagings of much-loved films and books including Brief Encounter, Wuthering Heights and the Red Shoes. For twenty years she worked as an actor, director, and eventually artistic director of Kneehigh, an international touring company based in Cornwall, known for its energetic productions with an inventive use of music and puppetry. In 2016, Emma became artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, the reconstructed Elizabethan theatre on the south bank of the Thames - although her tenure there ended after two years following disagreements with the board. She has since founded her own touring theatre company, Wise Children, whose recent productions include The Buddha of Suburbia and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. Emma's musical passions include Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Mozart and Bach.
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Jonathan Sumption
Jonathan Sumption, Lord Sumption, isn’t afraid of hard work or an intellectual challenge. He’s combined a high-profile legal career with a passion for medieval history, and his books include a five volume, 4000 page account of the Hundred Years War, widely described as ‘monumental.’ For much of his career he was a very successful barrister working on commercial law, constitutional law and human rights cases, with clients ranging from the British government to Roman Abramovich. Then in 2012 he made history when he was appointed to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, without ever having served as a full time judge. In 2019, he gave the Reith Lectures, under the title Law and the Decline of Politics, examining how the courts are taking on more of the role of making law. It’s a topic he follows up in his most recent book, The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law. Jonathan's musical choices include Berlioz, Schumann, Britten and Mozart.
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Colum McCann
The writer Colum McCann isn’t afraid to take on big subjects – and his ambition has delivered a shelf full of awards, from both sides of the Atlantic. He grew up in Dublin but moved to the United States in the mid-1980s and now lives in New York. That city is the setting for his international bestseller Let the Great World Spin, in which Philippe Petit’s tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in 1974 plays a key role. He’s also written a novel about both sides of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people, from the perspectives of two fathers.He collaborated with Diane Foley, whose son James was executed by Islamic State militants, to create a memoir, American Mother, which was published last year. Most recently his novel Twist focuses on the vulnerability of the undersea cables carrying the world’s internet data. Colum's music includes Gorecki, Prokofiev, Brahms and Haydn.
Ireland