Jackie Kay was born and brought up in Scotland. The Adoption Papers (Bloodaxe) won the Forward Prize, a Saltire prize and a Scottish Arts Council Prize. Fiere was shortlisted for the Costa award and her novel Trumpet won the Guardian Fiction Award and was shortlisted for the IMPAC award. Red Dust Road (Picador) won the Scottish Book of the Year Award, and the London Book Award, and was shortlisted for the JR Ackerley prize. Her third collection of short stories, Reality, Reality, was praised by ...
Jan 27, 2020•15 min
New York Times best-selling author Dylan Jones has written twenty books on subjects as diverse as music and politics and fashion and photography. He has been an editor at The Observer, The Sunday Times, i-D, The Face and Arena, a columnist for The Guardian and The Independent, and is currently the Editor-In-Chief of GQ. He has won Magazine Editor of the Year eleven times. Story recorded live at 5x15 at The Tabernacle in October 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of t...
Jan 19, 2020•16 min
“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 hono...
Jan 07, 2020•16 min
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 ...
Jan 03, 2020•24 min
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 name...
Dec 14, 2019•56 min
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 Quest...
Dec 10, 2019•25 min
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...
Dec 06, 2019•1 hr 5 min
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, an...
Dec 04, 2019•20 min
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’ c...
Dec 02, 2019•15 min
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 f...
Nov 14, 2019•13 min
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, ...
Nov 11, 2019•15 min
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 togethe...
Nov 04, 2019•21 min
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 Ros...
Oct 30, 2019•12 min
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 Octo...
Oct 28, 2019•16 min
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 ...
Oct 08, 2019•15 min
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 recen...
Sep 30, 2019•13 min
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...
Sep 26, 2019•1 hr 13 min
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...
Aug 31, 2019•16 min
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 L...
Aug 21, 2019•16 min
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 Wo...
Jul 09, 2019•1 hr 20 min
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-reac...
Jul 08, 2019•16 min
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 c...
Jul 04, 2019•1 hr 21 min
Johny Pitts is the founder of Afropean.com, an online user-generated journal which is part of the Guardian’s ‘Africa Network’. In October 2018, Pitts organised the Looking B(l)ack Symposium at the Bozar cultural centre in Brussels, which was a weekend of talks and performances dedicated to the notion of Black Travel. Pitts has received various awards for his work exploring African-European identity, including a Decibel Penguin Prize and an ENAR (European Network Against Racism) award. In 2012, P...
Jul 03, 2019•15 min
Jonathan Freedland is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster, who also writes bestselling novels under the pseudonym, Sam Bourne. Jonathan writes for the Guardian, the New York Times and New York Review of Books, and has a monthly column in the Jewish Chronicle. He also presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series, The Long View. Jonathan was named Columnist of the Year in the annual What the Papers Say Awards of 2002 and in 2008 he was awarded the David Watt prize for journalism. He ...
Jun 24, 2019•16 min
Join 5x15 on a mind-altering adventure with the pioneering, genre-busting writer Michael Pollan in conversation with John Crace. Delving into states of consciousness, looking at the latest brain science and visiting the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists, we’ll immerse ourselves in what is a major new field of therapeutic research. In his thrilling chronicle How to Change Your Mind, we meet the scientists, professionals, seekers and patients exploring the effects of LSD on ...
Jun 09, 2019•1 hr 17 min
Professor Dame Sue Black is a leading forensic anthropologist and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Engagement at Lancaster University. She confronts death every day. As a professor of anatomy and forensic anthropology, she focuses on mortal remains in her lab, at burial sites, at scenes of violence, murder and criminal dismemberment, and when investigating mass fatalities due to war, accident or natural disaster. In her best-selling book All That Remains she reveals the many faces of death she has come t...
Jun 01, 2019•20 min
Raymond Antrobus was born in London to an English mother and Jamaican father, and is the author of To Sweeten Bitter (Out-Spoken Press) and The Perseverance (Penned In The Margins) which was awarded the UK Poetry Book Society’s Winter Choice in 2018 and was named a poetry book of the year by The Guardian and The Sunday Times as well as being awarded the Ted Hughes award in 2019 and Rathbones Folio award in 2019. He’s also the author of children’s picture book, Bears Can Ski, which will be publis...
May 30, 2019•18 min
Johann Hari is an internationally bestselling author. His first book, Chasing the Scream, was a New York Times bestseller and is being adapted into a Hollywood feature film. His second book, Lost Connections, was a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller and it looks at the underlying causes of depression. He has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde and others, and he was twice named Newspaper Journalist of the Year by Amnesty International. His TED Talk, ‘Everythin...
May 29, 2019•15 min
Gina Miller was the lead claimant in the 2016 constitutional legal case against the UK Government over triggering Article 50. Born and raised in Guyana, she went to boarding school in England at the age of eleven and went on to study Law at the University of East London, then Marketing at the University of North London. In 2009, she and her husband Alan Miller co-founded SCM Direct, a disruptive investment management company, and the True and Fair Foundation, the latter of which provides funding...
May 28, 2019•11 min
Judith Kerr was born on 14 June 1923 in Berlin but escaped from Hitler's Germany with her parents and brother in 1933 when she was nine years old. Her father was a drama critic and a distinguished writer whose books were burned by the Nazis. The family passed through Switzerland and France before arriving finally in England in 1936. Judith went to eleven different schools, worked in the Red Cross during the war, and won a scholarship to the Central School of Arts and Crafts in 1945. Since then s...
May 27, 2019•16 min
