London’s church crypts are full of intellectual luminaries – but conversations with them tend to be pretty one-sided.
Which is why it’s high time we had The Conversation: a series of thought-provoking evenings held in the atmospheric crypt below St Martin-in-the-Fields, featuring a talented array of philosophers, writers, scientists, theatre-makers and more. All of whom are, you know, alive.
It’s all the idea of Peter Florence, the co-founder and former long-standing director of the Hay Festival, renowned for its impressive speakers and described by Bill Clinton as ‘The Woodstock of the mind’. The Hay Festival is, however, a long way-off – both in space (in Powys, Wales) and time (next May). So this is your chance to get your fix of deep discussion and debate here in London – and on a weekly basis.
Kicking off in January, The Conversation will take place every Tuesday evening until the end of April, featuring a different guest each time. They’ll join a discussion panel chaired by Peter Florence himself, accompanied by journalists and activists Claire Armitstead, Caitlin McNamara and Georgina Godwin.
On the line-up: brilliant writers like The Buddha of Suburbia playwright Hanif Kureishi and Booker Prize-winning author Paul Lynch; scientists like astronomer Maggie Aderin-Pocock and ‘statistics national treasure’ David Spiegelhalter; theatre director Nick Hytner and social philosopher Roman Krznaric; news editor Lindsey Hilsum and war correspondent Fergal Keane; and half a dozen other movers and shakers spanning the worlds of climate activism, human rights and ancient history. They’ll each be tackling some of the biggest questions currently gripping their respective fields, leaving you with a greater depth of understanding – and maybe even a little hope that the world isn’t totally doomed.
These evenings are also a little different to your typical talk – after an hour-long interview, the speaker will then work the room, sitting down at your table to have a genuinely personal discussion about the subject at hand. Oh, and tickets cost a very modest £15 a pop.
If you’re still debating whether to go.
NOTE: The Conversation takes place every Tuesday at 6.30pm from 14th January – 22nd April 2025. You can find out more and book tickets here.
The Conversation | St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 4JJ
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