Blowing Hot and Cold
There’s more to a fridge than meets the eye. Sunday assembler Phil Wiles loves talking to people about how the world works and what makes us human. He also likes drinking large quantities of coffee. Phil will be combining these super likes to tell us how fridges changed what we eat, what diseases we get […]
Film Screening: “Oh Jeremy Corbyn – The Big Lie”
The first UK screening of the documentary film “Oh Jeremy Corbyn — The Big Lie”. In 2017 Britain came close to electing the most left-wing prime minister it ever had. But within three years the Corbyn project had apparently fallen apart. What happened? This film talks to people who were at the heart of events […]
The Speed of Life: A Deep Time Perspective
The Darwin Day Lecture 2023 features Professor Anjali Goswami – President of the Linnean Society and Principal Investigator at the Natural History Museum’s Goswami Lab – and Professor Alice Roberts. Why is evolution seemingly a story of fits and starts, with long periods of relative stability interrupted by rapid transitions? What allows some species to survive […]
The Clements Prize for Composers 2023
This November, The Clements Prize returns to Conway Hall, celebrating the brightest and best young composers in our biannual competition. The 2023 edition of The Clements Prize for Composers calls for new works for piano trio. Compositions selected for the final will be performed by the Fidelio Trio in this concert, before a distinguished panel […]
‘Missa Humana’ World Premiere
‘Now she lives in a cottage in Hastings, and is currently working on a full-scale secular Mass.’ Thus wrote the great folksinger Shirley Collins about her sister Dolly in the liner notes of the 1967 album The Power of the True Love Knot, which featured arrangements by Dolly, a student of the classical composer Alan […]
How To Disagree
Insight and empathy spring from the clash of different perspectives. In a world where it’s easier than ever for people to share their opinions, we should be reaping the benefits of diverse views. Instead, we too often find ourselves mired in hostility or – worse – avoiding disagreement altogether. Ian Leslie draws on essential lessons […]
Wild City: Living with Urban Wildlife
City-dwellers, it’s time to meet your neighbours. Meryl Pugh reimagines the wild as ‘feral’, recording the fauna and flora of Leytonstone in prose as incisive as it is lyrical. Here, on the edge of the city, red kite and parakeets thrive alongside bluebell and yarrow, a muntjac deer is glimpsed in the undergrowth, and an […]
Homo Sapiens Rediscovered
*In-person tickets for this event have sold out, however there are still livestream tickets available.* Who are we? How do scientists define Homo sapiens? And how does our species differ from the extinct hominins that came before us? Paul Pettitt reveals the extraordinary story of how our ancestors adapted to unforgiving and relentlessly changing climates, […]
They Call it Love – The Politics of Emotional Life
Comforting a family member or friend, soothing children, providing company for the elderly, ensuring that people feel well enough to work; this is all essential labour. Without it, capitalism would cease to function. Here, and in her book They Call It Love, Alva Gotby investigates the work that makes a haven in a heartless world, […]