5x15

“Play for me is trial and error without fear of failure" Michael Rosen talks at 5x15 about his new work: The Book of Play. Michael Rosen is one of the best-loved figures in the children’s book world, renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and education campaigner. His bestselling books include We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen’s Sad Book and Totally Wonderful Miss Plumberry. He is a poet, broadcaster, former Children’s Laureate and a recipient of one of France’s top honours: Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. His book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt has sold over 8,000,000 copies. He has presented Radio 4’s Word of Mouth since 1996. He is Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. Stories from the 5x15 recorded live at The Tabernacle in London in October 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 eve

David Nott is a Welsh consultant surgeon, specializing in general and vascular surgery. He works mainly in London hospitals, but for more than twenty-five years he has also volunteered to work in disaster and war zones. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Birthday Honours and in 2016 he received the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award and the Pride of Britain Award. Since 2015, the foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets. He lives in London with his wife and two daughters. War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line, his first book, was published to great critical acclaim. The Times called it: “one of the most brutally vivid evocations of modern warfare that you will read.” @NottFoundation Recorded live at The Tabernacle in London on 7th November 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations.

From our archive: Recorded live in London in 2014 at 5x15 at Conway Hall. James Lovelock, who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory). His many books on the subject include Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979), The Revenge of Gaia (2006), and The Vanishing Face of Gaia (2009). In 2003 he was made a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen, in 2005 Prospect magazine named him one of the world's top 100 public intellectuals, and in 2006 he received the Wollaston Medal, the highest Award of the UK Geological Society. John Gray is a writer and political philosopher. He has been Professor of Politics at Oxford University, Visiting Professor at Harvard and Yale and Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics. He now writes full time. His books include Straw Dogs (‘That rarest of things, a contemporary work of philosophy, wholly accessible and profoundly relevant to t

Michael Morpurgo is one of the UK’s best-loved authors and storytellers. He was appointed Children’s Laureate in May 2003, a post he helped to set up with his friend Ted Hughes in 1999. He was awarded an OBE for services to Literature in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2007. He has written over 130 books with world sales of over 34 million copies. Many of Michael’s books have been adapted for the stage. These include Private Peaceful, Kensuke’s Kingdom, I Believe in Unicorns and The Mozart Question, and most notably, the National Theatre’s multi award-winning production of War Horse. The film of War Horse by Steven Spielberg was released in January 2012. In 1976, Michael and his wife, Clare started the charity Farms for City Children. They help to run three farms around the country, in Gloucestershire, Pembrokeshire and North Devon. Each farm offers children and teachers from urban primary schools the chance to live and work in the countryside for a week, and gain hands-on experience. Michael has written abou

Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women is a world-wide sensation – forever changing how we think about women and desire. All Lina wanted was to be desired. How did she end up in a marriage with two children and a husband who wouldn’t touch her? All Maggie wanted was to be understood. How did she end up in a relationship with her teacher and then in court, a hated pariah in her small town? All Sloane wanted was to be admired. How did she end up a sexual object of men, including her husband, who liked to watch her have sex with other men and women? Nearly a decade in the making, Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women is a global phenomenon. Hailed instantly as a feminist classic, this staggering work of nonfiction is the result of thousands of hours spent in the company of its subjects – three women whose lives reveal profound and previously unspoken truths about life and love, womanhood and desire. Lisa joins 5x15 for an exclusive In Conversation with the Guardian’s Hadley Freeman. Lisa Taddeo spent eight years and thousands of hour

John Humphrys was the voice of Radio 4’s Today programme for over three decades. Written to coincide with his retirement from the BBC, his memoir, A Day Like Today, brings all of Humphrys’ formidable intellect and insight to bear on the state of politics and current affairs in the United Kingdom. Charting John's life from his Cardiff childhood, through to the ups and downs of his life as a journalist covering Watergate and apartheid South Africa, his time presenting the BBC Nine O'Clock News, and his 33 years holding politicians to account on Radio 4's Today, it is a riveting insight into his famously tough interviewing style, his deep suspicion of authority in all its forms, his passionate commitment to various causes, and his ferocious intellect. Humphrys was recently a guest presenter on Classic FM’s More Music Breakfast show. Recorded live at The Tabernacle in London on 18th November 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are onl

Felicity Cloake is the writer of the Guardian's 'How to Make the Perfect…' cookery feature. She is also a New Statesman columnist; winner of the Guild of Food Writers' Food Journalist of the Year and New Media awards 2011; and author of books including Perfect: 68 Essential Recipes for Every Cook's Repertoire, Perfect Host: 162 Easy Recipes for Feeding People & Having Fun, Perfect Too, and The A-Z of Eating. One More Croissant for the Road (Mudlark, 2019) saw the nation’s ‘taster in chief’ cycle 2,300 km across France in search of the definitive versions of classic French dishes. @FelicityCloake Recorded live at The Tabernacle in London on 18th November 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Jess Phillips MP is a Labour Party politician and has been MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. As The Times has said: 'There's nobody else at Westminster quite like Jess Phillips. She is fearless and funny, riotous and rebellious, maverick and mischievous.' Prior to becoming an MP, Jess worked within the charity and community sectors. She talks about her book Truth to Power: 7 Ways to Call Time on B.S. Recorded at 5x15 live in London at EartH Hackney on 8th October 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Jude Kelly is a creative director and Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre from 2006-2018. Jude has created an incredible portfolio of Festivals including: Being A Man, Unlimited, The Rest is Noise, Changing Britain, the Festival of Death, (B)old, as well as WOW- Women of the World. WOW is a global festival movement and has held 65 festivals in 5 continents over 30 locations in over 15 countries from Baltimore to Brazil, Cardiff to Karachi, and further across the UK, Australia and the USA, reaching over 2 million people so far. Jude has directed over 100 productions including at the Royal Shakespeare Company, English National Opera and National Theatre. She led the cultural team for the successful London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic bid. Recorded at 5x15 live in London at EartH Hackney on 8th October 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x1

Jack Harries grew up in a family of filmmakers and storytellers. At the age eighteen he built up a successful YouTube channel and production company gaining over four million subscribers worldwide. Jack has used this platform consistently to raise awareness of mental health, forced migration and environmental issues. He has travelled all over the world to tell stories from the front lines of Climate Change. Recorded at 5x15 live in London at EartH Hackney on 8th October 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Nick Hornby is the author of the internationally bestselling novels many of which have been made into successful, and much-loved, films, including Fever Pitch starring Colin Firth, High Fidelity starring John Cusak and About a Boy with Hugh Grant. Nick has also scripted the adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir An Education as well as Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín. His book State of the Union is the companion novella to his new TV series directed by Stephen Frears on the BBC starring Chris O'Dowd and Rosamund Pike. It won three Emmy Awards in 2019. He’s tell us about it in conversation with 5x15 co-founder Rosie Boycott. Recorded at 5x15 live in London at EartH Hackney on 8th October 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

John Crace who joins with his own personal guide to surviving the ongoing political apocalypse. He is of course beloved by us all as the Guardian's legendary parliamentary sketch writer and author of the ‘Digested Read’ columns. His latest book is Decline and Fail. He is the author of the previous books: I Maybot: The Rise and Fall and I Never Promised you a Rose Garden: A short guide to modern politics, the coalition and the general election. Recorded live at EartH Hackney in London on 8th October 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Tristan Gooley is an author and natural navigator. Tristan set up his natural navigation school in 2008 and is the author of the award-winning books, The Natural Navigator (2010), The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues & Signs (2014), How to Read Water (2016) and Wild Signs and Star Paths (2018), some of the world’s only books covering natural navigation. He has written for the Sunday Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the BBC and many magazines. Tristan has led expeditions in five continents, climbed mountains in Europe, Africa and Asia, sailed small boats across oceans and piloted small aircraft to Africa and the Arctic. He has walked with and studied the methods of the Tuareg, Bedouin and Dayak in some of the remotest regions on Earth. @NaturalNav Recorded live at the Tabernacle in London's Notting Hill on 23rd September 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Marc Randolph is a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, advisor and investor. Marc was co-founder of Netflix, serving as their founding CEO, as the executive producer of their web site, and as a member of their board of directors. Although best known for starting Netflix, Marc’s career as an entrepreneur spans more than four decades. He’s founded or co-founded more than half a dozen other successful start-ups, mentored rising entrepreneurs including the co-founders of Looker Data which was recently sold to Google for $2.6B, and invested in numerous successful tech ventures. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, works extensively with young entrepreneur programs, sits on the board of the environmental advocacy group 1% for the Planet, and chairs the National Outdoor Leadership School’s Board of Trustees. His new book is That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea. Recorded live at the Tabernacle in London's Notting Hill on 23rd September 2019. 5x15 brings together five

In her only UK appearance of 2019, the #1 New York Times bestselling author Ann Patchett was in conversation with Mariella Frostrup at 5x15. One of the most powerful, wise and witty voices in literary fiction today. Only a select few writers alive today have achieved the critical acclaim and global renown of the American novelist Ann Patchett. Her rare insight into the human condition has made her a household name and earned her a place on Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 Most Influential People. Ann Patchett talks about The Dutch House – the story of a brother and sister who are exiled from their childhood home, already hailed as ‘her best yet, which is saying something’ (John Boyne) in conversation with Mariella Frostrup. Star actor Tom Hanks has narrated the audiobook, and Sunday Times Literary Editor Andrew Holgate says ‘If there’s a better, more poignant or involving novel than The Dutch House published this year, I will be very, very surprised’. Recorded live at the Emmanuel Centre on 10th S

Nick is an author and broadcaster whose books and TV films explore geographical themes. In recent years, he has become best known for presenting the BBC2 TV series Coast, Map Man, Great British Journeys, Nicholas Crane’s Britannia and Town. His books include Clear Waters Rising, Two Degrees West and Mercator: The Man Who Mapped the Planet. Published in 2016, The Making of the British Landscape has been praised by the critics as ‘Ambitious, magnificent’ (Guardian); ‘Storytelling at its best’ (The Times); ‘A tour de force’ (Daily Mail); ‘simultaneously scholarly, lyrical and moving.’ (New Statesman); ‘A geographer’s love letter to the British and the land that formed them’ (Sunday Times). Nick’s most recent book, You Are Here, A Brief Guide to the World, argues that geographical knowledge is key to the future of human life on the planet. Between 2015 and 2018, Nick served a three-year fixed term as President of the Royal Geographical Society. Recorded live at Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire August 2019. 5x

Viv Groskop is a writer, critic, broadcaster and stand-up comedian. She has presented Front Row and Saturday Review on BBC Radio 4, is a regular on BBC1’s This Week and has hosted book tours for Graham Norton, Jo Brand and Jennifer Saunders. Groskop’s books include The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature, and How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking. She is currently writing a self-help memoir titled Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature due out in 2020. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Steven Pinker in conversation with Amol Rajan on Enlightenment Now. Steven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. He grew up in Montreal and earned his BA from McGill and his PhD from Harvard. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has also taught at Stanford and MIT. He has won numerous prizes for his research, his teaching, and his nine books, including The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, The Blank Slate, The Better Angels of Our Nature, and The Sense of Style. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, a two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Humanist of the Year, a recipient of nine honorary doctorates, and one of Foreign Policy’s “World’s Top 100 Public Intellectuals” and Time’s “100 Most Influential People in the World Today.” He is Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New York Times, The Guardian, and other publications. His

Pico Iyer was born in Oxford, England in 1957, to parents from India, and educated at Eton, Oxford and Harvard. He is the author of eight works of nonfiction and two novels. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, and many other magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. He splits his time between Nara, Japan, and the United States. Autumn Light, his latest book, is a far-reaching exploration of Japanese history and culture and a moving meditation on impermanence, mortality, and grief. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Today, in a world full of uncertainties, it’s hard to know whether to laugh, or cry. Both humour and despair are deeply human reactions to the age we live in, especially to the politics of our times. But why is it that we turn to jokes in our darkest moments or continue to seek refuge in stories when we feel at our loneliest? And how are the two seemingly contradictory emotions of humour and melancholy connected? A podcast of a 5x15 evening in London with two eminent voices exploring our human condition. Elif Shafak is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist, academic, public speaker and women's rights activist, who has sold millions of novels worldwide. David Baddiel is a legendary comedian, best-selling writer and a leading commentator. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories