Nearly 30 years ago, Jamie Oliver hit British TV screens with The Naked Chef, beginning a career arc that has seen him become a bestselling author and social campaigner. He started helping out in his parents' pub aged just eight, and struggled at school, but after making the move into cookery he flourished, first in top kitchens and then behind the camera. Cultural ubiquity and campaigning documentaries followed, though his business fortunes took a significant hit after his Jamie's Italian chain...
May 09, 2026•15 min
Dame Emily Thornberry, Labour MP and the influential head of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, is in the hot seat as the committee continues its ongoing investigation - dubbed ‘Scandelson’ scrutinising - into the circumstances behind Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador. Born in Guildford in 1960 her mother was a teacher and her father an academic who would go on to be a UN Assistant Secretary General. When Emily was seven her father walked out on the family leaving...
May 02, 2026•15 min
Kristalina Georgieva is not like previous heads of the International Monetary Fund. She grew up behind the Iron Curtain in Bulgaria, which was then part of the Soviet bloc. Born in Sofia in 1953, her father was a civil engineer and her mother a shopkeeper. Life was tough because her family weren't part of the Communist Party regime. Her father fell ill when Kristalina was young and she was just fifteen when she went to work at the local food market. She studied economics at the then Karl Marx Hi...
Apr 25, 2026•15 min
McFly front man and children's author Tom Fletcher has returned to his first love - musical theatre - penning the songs for Paddington the Musical which has just got its sticky paws on seven prestigious Olivier Awards. Born in Harrow north west London, Fletcher took inspiration from a family love of musical theatre and it wasn't long before he was treading the boards, performing the role of Oliver in the West End at the age of 10. He went on to the prestigious Sylvia Young theatre school where h...
Apr 18, 2026•15 min
Viktor Orbán has been a powerful force in Hungarian politics for nearly 40 years, spending 20 of them as Prime Minister. This weekend he’s trying to win a sixth term in the top job, as voters go to the polls in parliamentary elections. The story of his political career is entwined with the story of Hungarian democracy; at the end of the Cold War, a young Orbán emerged as both canny operator and gifted orator in the anti-Communist youth movement, Fidesz, steering it through splits and ideological...
Apr 11, 2026•14 min
From over-worked medics to bent coppers, for the last 30 years Jed Mercurio has been responsible for some of the UK’s most successful TV series, including Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and Bodyguard. But Line of Duty is arguably his biggest hit, and recording has started for the much-anticipated seventh series. The award-winning screenwriter, director and producer grew up in a working-class family in Staffordshire. His parents, Italian immigrants, were keen he fit in, but friends say Jed was unique fro...
Apr 04, 2026•15 min
Dame Sarah Mullally has been installed as the new Archbishop of Canterbury this week. The former nurse from Woking is the first woman to occupy the role of de facto leader of the Church of England and leader of the global Anglican communion. In contrast to her Eton and Oxford educated predecessor Justin Welby, Sarah Mullally attended her local comprehensive before studying nursing at South Bank Polytechnic. By the age of thirty seven she was appointed Chief nursing officer for the NHS, a meteori...
Mar 28, 2026•15 min
Benjamin Netanyahu was born in Tel Aviv in 1949, the year after the State of Israel was founded. One of three brothers, Netanyahu spent much of his early years in the United States pursuing his education. But following his older brother’s death, Netanyahu found himself drawn into a career in the public eye. Using his military experience to advise on security matters, in 1984 Netanyahu became Israel’s Ambassador to the UN and established himself as a champion of Israel on the international stage....
Mar 24, 2026•32 min
Former Labour leader, Ed Miliband, is now Secretary of State for Energy. A role more important than ever with surging energy costs due to the conflict in Iran. Born in 1969, Ed grew up in London’s Primrose Hill. His father, a Marxist academic, and his mother a human rights activist, Ed’s life was steeped in politics from the beginning. After attending a local state school in North London, he followed in the the footsteps of his older brother, David, to Oxford University and then to the Labour pa...
Mar 21, 2026•15 min
She’s already won a Bafta for her portrayal of a hoodoo healer in the Southern gothic, Sinners. But can British actress Wunmi Mosaku win an Oscar too? Mosaku says her role has helped her connect with her ancestry and find parts of herself she thought she had lost. Born in Nigeria in 1986, Wunmi moved to Manchester as a very young child, growing up in Hulme and Chorlton with her parents and two sisters. Her first taste of performing came aged seven when she joined Manchester Girls Choir which she...
Mar 14, 2026•15 min
It’s been a busy first year for the US Defense Secretary. From signal chat controversies to Operation Epic Fury, Pete Hegseth has been making headlines. Born in Minneapolis in 1980, Hegseth had what could be described as an ‘All-American’ upbringing. A basketball player at school he continued playing during his University career at Princeton where he majored in Politics. He also enrolled in the ROTC (reserve officers’ training corps) which turned out to be a career defining decision. After stint...
Mar 07, 2026•15 min
‘Small Prophets’ has quietly taken the world by storm. A whimsy, magical and gentle show providing a tonic to modern life. Its creator, Mackenzie Crook, could arguably described in a similar way. Born in Sutton-on-hone a village near Dartford in 1971, his creative brilliance was evident to friends early on but instead of drama school he started work at Pizza Hut. Moving to London in his early twenties he shared a flat where dry rot led to the stairs collapsing. But his luck began to change when ...
Feb 28, 2026•19 min
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has long clashed with US President Donald Trump - filing more than 50 lawsuits against the administration to date. Now, with a new memoir coming out, all signs seem to be pointing at Newsom himself running for the top job in 2028. Born in San Francisco in 1967, Newsom lived in two worlds - the first, among the wealth and glamour of his father’s friends, the billionaire Getty family, often joining them on luxury trips abroad. The second was a modest home provi...
Feb 21, 2026•15 min
It’s awards season - and one name that keeps cropping up is Teyana Taylor. She’s nominated for her first Oscar, for her role in One Battle After Another, and has already won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress and her latest album was just nominated for the Best R&B Grammy. For many, it would appear Taylor has burst on to the scene from nowhere - but for those who know her, these nominations are the culmination of more than two decades of work in the industry. Signed at just 15 to P...
Feb 14, 2026•15 min
As the 2026 Winter Olympics kick off in Italy, we look to the most powerful woman in sport - the International Olympics Committee President, Kirsty Coventry. The most decorated African Olympian of all time, the 42-year-old mother-of-two made history as both the first African and the first woman to hold the title when she was elected last year. Kirsty began swimming from an early age, in the family pool in Harare, Zimbabwe, where her mother gave swimming lessons to local children. Her talent was ...
Feb 07, 2026•15 min
The fatal shooting of two Minnesota residents by federal agents has contributed to the fiercest public backlash yet against the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policy. The man widely seen as the driving force behind this controversial approach, is White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller. Born in 1985 and raised in liberal Santa Monica, California, Miller is the grandson of Jewish refugees. Outspoken from an early age, he made his name as a teenager through conservative tal...
Jan 31, 2026•15 min
The Secretary General of NATO has been dubbed the Trump whisperer after talks with Donald Trump at Davos appeared to help trigger a sudden U-turn on Greenland and threatened tariffs. Mark Rutte was born in The Hague in 1967, began his career in business at Unilever and entered politics in 2002 eventually becoming the Dutch prime minister where he steered the Netherlands through economic turmoil, domestic crises and global shocks. Appointed Secretary General of NATO in October 2024 he has led the...
Jan 24, 2026•15 min
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that US President Donald Trump’s threat to take Greenland would spell the end of Nato, the trans-Atlantic defence alliance. So who is the woman standing toe to toe with Trump? A career politician in the truest sense, she was first elected as a member of the Danish Parliament in 2001, the day after her 24th birthday. After nearly two decades at the heart of the country’s politics, where she held roles including Justice Minister and Minister for E...
Jan 17, 2026•15 min
The newly-appointed British ambassador to the United States, Sir Christian Turner, is a career diplomat whose experience spans almost three decades. He was about to take up the role of the UK's ambassador at the UN but after Lord Mandelson was abruptly pulled from his ambassadorial role in the US late last year, Sir Keir Starmer diverted Turner to replace him. Born in Crawley in 1972, Turner attended the prestigious Marlborough College, before pursuing English literature at the University of Man...
Jan 10, 2026•15 min
The new Mayor of New York and at just 34, the youngest since 1892, is sworn in. He is the first Muslim and Indian American to lead the nation's largest city. Zohran Mamdani was born in Uganda, Africa, to parents of Indian descent and it was a childhood filled with bird song and nature. He was seven years old when his family moved to New York, to Manhattan's Upper West Side and that's where Mamdani began to make his mark. He started making music as rapper, Mr Cardamom but after releasing only a f...
Jan 03, 2026•15 min
Karl Bushby, the British man walking around the world, is almost home. The former paratrooper set off from Chile in 1998. He walked through the Americas, crossed the frozen ocean from Alaska to Russia, and last year became the first person to swim the Caspian Sea between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. These are all huge achievements in their own right but for Bushby they were just sections he had to complete to finish his epic journey. Originally scheduled to finish in 2006, Bushby is now 56 and sti...
Dec 27, 2025•15 min
Dame Mary Berry has been teaching Brits to cook for more than half a century. Aged 90, she remains a staple on our screens at Christmas. Born in Bath in 1935, Berry was the middle child of two brothers. She struggled in school and studied Home Economics class instead of Maths. Berry left school with no qualifications but continued to pursue her love of cooking, training at the famous Le Cordon Bleu school in France. In 1971, she began her TV career with slots on shows like Collector’s World and ...
Dec 20, 2025•15 min
David Harewood, who turned sixty this week, returns as Othello for the third time on stage. It’s a role he first took on in 1997, becoming the first black actor to play the part at London’s National Theatre. Growing up in multicultural Birmingham in the sixties and seventies, he was born to immigrants from Barbados. Described as gregarious by his teachers at school, Harewood showed an interest in entertaining from an early age and subsequently trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of the Dram...
Dec 13, 2025•15 min
Stephen Smith profiles the former racing driver and marketing guru who's turned around McLaren's fortunes and led them to Formula 1 glory. Born in California in 1971, friends and colleagues paint a picture of a fiercely competitive man with ‘noble intentions’. After dropping out of high school Zak Brown’s life changed after meeting former F1 world champion Mario Andretti when he was 15. He traded watches he’d won on the Wheel of Fortune game show to buy a go-kart. Brown won races as a driver but...
Dec 06, 2025•15 min
The Coventry MP who left the Labour party and joined Jeremy Corbyn's new left-wing ‘Your Party'. Zarah Sultana's husband and friends tell us how her upbringing shaped her politics and reveal her questionable taste in music. 'I think she would describe her taste as no taste', claims her husband Craig Lloyd. She was born in Birmingham to political parents who were both members of the Labour party. Her father even took her on a Labour party delegation to the occupied West Bank when she was a studen...
Nov 29, 2025•15 min
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a darling of MAGA. But this week a disagreement with Trump over the Epstein files has seen him brand her as a traitor. Born in 1974 in the suburbs of Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene had a conventional upbringing. She graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Business Administration, and later owned her family’s construction business and a stake in a CrossFit gym. But like so many Americans, Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was a turning point fo...
Nov 22, 2025•15 min
David Hockney is arguably Britain’s most loved living artist. He's known as a colourful character, not only because of his vibrant, colour rich paintings of Californian landscapes, glittering blue pools, and thick Yorkshire woodlands, but also his own carefully curated image from the 1960s- bright blond hair and oversized thick black round glasses. He was born in Bradford in 1937, and knew by the age of 10 he wanted to be an artist. He studied at the Royal College of Art, and by his mid 20s he w...
Nov 15, 2025•15 min
Afua Kyei, Chief Financial Officer at the Bank of England, has been named Britain's most influential black person. She grew up in South London, reading copious numbers of Enid Blyton books and listening to Boyzone, got 6 A levels and went to university a year early. She studied chemistry at Oxford and Princeton, but then had a change of heart . She became a chartered accountant and - in 2019 at the age of just 36 - she was appointed Chief Financial Officer at the Bank of England, the Bank's youn...
Nov 08, 2025•15 min
As Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party comes under increasing pressure and criticism, we profile a man who may well be waiting in the wings. Andy Burnham, a Labour stalwart who started his political career in the Blair and Brown era, seems determined to have his say in the party’s future too. Last month, he caused a political storm when he was widely interpreted as openly challenging Sir Keir Starmer’s authority during the party conference, confirming that MPs had contacted him abo...
Nov 01, 2025•15 min
Sanae Takaichi is the first female prime minister of Japan. Once the drummer in a heavy metal band, she is now a staunch conservative, tough on immigration and against same sex marriage. More Iron Lady than Iron Maiden, the 64-year-old models her strong leadership style on Margaret Thatcher. She entered politics in 1993, the same year as future prime minister Shinzo Abe. A loyal ally, she quickly rose the ranks in his cabinet. After several unsuccessful leadership attempts, she finally became pr...
Oct 27, 2025•15 min
