Across the West, there is a rising tide of people who feel excluded, alienated from mainstream politics, and increasingly hostile towards minorities, immigrants and neo-liberal economics. Many of these voters are turning to national populist movements, which have begun to change the face of Western liberal democracy, from the United States to France, Austria to the UK. This radical turn, we are told, is a last howl of rage from an aging electorate on the verge of extinction. Their leaders are fascistic and their politics anti-democratic; their existence a side-show to liberal democracy. But this version of events, as Matthew Goodwin will show, could not be further from the truth. Read more.

A special evening with Rowan Pelling on whether Monogamy is good for the soul. For this talk we couldn’t be guided by anyone more expert as Rowan edited The Erotic Review magazine for eight years and in 2017 launched a new magazine, The Amorist: for devotees of love and passion. She has written about sexuality, gender and relationships for over 20 years and has also been a sex columnist. Do join us for what promises to be a fascinating wine-fuelled evening. Read more.

As a theoretical physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a scientific view of the world, whose logic is governed by a small number of impersonal forces and laws. These decree that all things in the universe are relative, material and mortal. But one summer evening in Maine, looking at the stars from a small boat at sea, he was overcome by an oceanic feeling: a hint of something unified, absolute, and immaterial. As an evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins can find no hint of an immaterial universe in hiding. Science arrives at knowledge by evidence, and everything else is fiction. If we need meaning, we go to art – or religion – to console us for its absence. Science explains most things. But not everything. If not ‘everything’, why not, and what do we call the rest? Does faith play any role in science? Yes, but not what is understood by religious faith. What kind of faith, then? The encounter between science and religion has received an unprecedented public airing over the last decade. Join us for a head-to-head between two scientific sceptics who find themselves on different platforms, but waiting for the same train: would it be possible to prove or disprove the existence of an intelligent and purposeful creator – and, if so, how? Alan Lightman’s latest book, Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine, was published in April by Corsair. Read more.

From the author of the international bestseller Letters of Note, comes Speeches of Note – a collection of speeches from throughout the ages. In this unmissable multimedia show, you will listen to recordings of some of the greatest speeches ever delivered and hear actors, reading speeches including some that remain unspoken like President Nixon’s chilling public announcement should Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become stranded on the Moon. Discover speeches that altered the course of history, like Nelson Mandela’s on the day he became South Africa’s first black President, and outpourings of much-needed change, such as the impassioned impromptu appeal for women’s rights from Sojourner Truth, an African-American woman born into slavery. Expect the gloriously unexpected, as Kermit the Frog takes to the podium, and celebrate lives well-lived, including Tilda Swinton’s tribute to ‘every alien’s favourite cousin’, David Bowie. And finally you’ll hear from Shaun Usher, who compiled the collection, in conversation with Hannah MacInnes, on the importance of each speech. Join us for an evening to remember. In association with Read more.

A unique opportunity to hear international bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari in conversation with Natalie Portman. This event is now sold out but the LIVESTREAM is still available. Yuval Noah Harari is a global phenomenon whose books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow have between them sold 12 million copies in 45 languages: a unique global cooperation between one author and his readers, who include some of the most influential figures on the world stage. In this unmissable conversation Yuval Noah Harari will discuss his highly anticipated new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, with Natalie Portman, award-winning actress, director, activist and Harvard graduate, who has studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where Harari now teaches. What is happening right now and what we should do about it. How are we to grapple with the consequences of who we are, in terms of nuclear war, ecological cataclysms, political chaos and technological nemesis? As actors, what will our restless and aggressive species do next? As spectators, how can we equip ourselves and our children for the changes to come? This event is now sold out but the LIVESTREAM is still available. Read more.

A unique opportunity to hear international bestselling author Yuval Noah Harari in conversation with Natalie Portman. Yuval Noah Harari is a global phenomenon whose books Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow have between them sold 12 million copies in 45 languages: a unique global cooperation between one author and his readers, who include some of the most influential figures on the world stage. In this unmissable conversation Yuval Noah Harari will discuss his highly anticipated new book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, with Natalie Portman, award-winning actress, director, activist and Harvard graduate, who has studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where Harari now teaches. What is happening right now and what we should do about it. How are we to grapple with the consequences of who we are, in terms of nuclear war, ecological cataclysms, political chaos and technological nemesis? As actors, what will our restless and aggressive species do next? As spectators, how can we equip ourselves and our children for the changes to come? Read more.

Join us for a hilarious scene-by-scene commentary by Geoff Dyer of cult classic Second World War film Where Eagles Dare. With its historical inaccuracies, camp SS officers and inexplicable plot twists, starring a magnificent, bleary-eyed Richard Burton and a coolly anachronistic Clint Eastwood, Where Eagles Dare is the apex of 1960s war movies, by turns enjoyable and preposterous. ‘Broadsword Calling Danny Boy’ is Geoff Dyer’s tribute to the film he has loved since childhood: a scene-by-scene analysis taking us from its snowy, Teutonic opening credits to its vertigo-inducing climax. Read more.

‘For years now there had been no country here but war’, wrote Michael Herr at the beginning of Dispatches, his classic account of Vietnam. Not a war without end but – more corrosive and maddening – a war without beginning. There are no precise origins for the Indochina tragedy. Some look back to the Japanese occupation of the Second World War; others prefer 1954 and the battlefield humiliation of the French at Dien Bien Phu; for America it mainly started in 1961, or perhaps 1965. But once it got going the war machine could do everything but stop – or win – until Communist forces seized control of South Vietnam in 1975. And for decades afterwards no one wanted to talk about what happened. Max Hastings has spent years piecing together what happened, interviewing participants on both sides (Vietcong guerrillas, Southern paratroopers, Saigon bar-girls, Hanoi students, infantrymen from South Dakota, Marines from North Carolina, Huey pilots from Arkansas), researching American and Vietnamese documents and memoirs, comparing testimony from warlords and peasants, soldiers and statesmen. An overwhelming tragedy for the Vietnamese people – of whom forty died for every one of the 58,000 American dead – and who paid a bitter price in privation and oppression for the Northerners’ victory. Equally a tragedy which divided America as never before, destroyed one president and contributed to the downfall of another, and delivered a lasting blow to America’s moral standing and pretensions to invincibility. Was it a struggle which neither side clearly deserved to win? And have we forgotten its lessons about the use of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges? Come and listen to Max Hastings’s verdict, and to his evocation of a hot war played out by big powers amid jungle and paddy-field – as proxy for a Cold War which has never gone away. Read more.