Tinto Brass - d. November 4th 2026

The moviegoer waits for a film to start.
One reel in, and they do not recognise
what it is they came to see. Is this art
or the end of a brilliant career? Eyes
turn away to let the worst of it pass,
saying where there's muck, there's Brass.

Read about Tinto Brass here

Clem Cattini - d. November 2nd 2026

No more humping your kit across London,
down to basement studios, setting up,
laying down the track, packing up. Onto
another session; who’s next? Everyone,
anyone, an impossible almanac of the 60s.

Read about Clem Cattini here

John Leeson – d. November 1st 2026

When old friends turn to rust
and love falls into corrosion,
when batteries run down and
the answer to our questions
is always Insufficient Data,
listen for the affirmative voice
telling the tale that wags the dog.

Read about John Leeson here

Juan Atkins – d. October 31st 2026

God said Here’s to the shock of the new
and cued up Kraftwerk on the turntable.
Some kids tuned in; one was you,
with a drum machine and a 909,
saying The future must be redesigned.

Read about Juan Atkins here

Sandra Kerr – d. October 29th 2026

I heard you sing of the strangest people;
Uncle Feedle, the Bony King of Nowhere.
We must all lose our voices in time; these
old songs will learn to sing themselves
to those who remain. But listen! Here is
a chorus of mice to mend your memory.

Read about Sandra Kerr here

Patrick Stewart – d. October 28th 2026

Space is the greatest theatre, where
gravity and gravitas are in balance,
and all action is relative to the stars.
A good line is the surest compass;
set course. Let’s see what’s out there.

Read about Patrick Stewart here

Elke Sommer – d. October 28th 2026

Even in the dark I knew it was you;
that eau-de-cologne - what was it? -
ah yes - Naïveté, a scent fit only for
those who wish to be misunderstood,
who like to keep their men waiting,
kittenish in kohl, dripping with ditz.

Read about Elke Sommer here

Peter Medak – d. October 27th 2026

I am scouting locations for your life,
from classroom to gallows to gutter.
I light each shot in sixteen shades
of dark, natural light turning into
supernatural light, and each frame
edged with unaccountable dread. 

Read about Peter Medak here

Walter Koenig – d. October 25th 2026

Your character is a 'wessel' for its time,
a voyage from the future, but also from
the past, laden with dangerous cargoes.
In a Universe warped by optimism, old
worlds show how new worlds could be.

Read about Walter Koenig here

Tom Skerritt – d. October 21st 2026

The camera tracks in close-up
to a cast of faces; all the same
bones, hewn from granite yet
softening at a woman’s smile,
skin like prairie scrub, eyes blue
as the bayou or the empty sky.

Read about Tom Skerritt here

Douglas Dunn – d. October 16th 2026

I must revisit your library of times,
to browse, to study, to be renewed.
The books within call out, brimming
with ideas, yet easy as an old suit.
The doors are heavy, but always open;
my friend, say you’ll come with me.

Read about Douglas Dunn here

Eva Marie Saint – d. October 6th 2026

The house lights go up; just me
as the reel ends…and a woman
on her own, three rows back,
svelte and luminous, hair like
threads of platinum. She lights
a cigarette, says great movie,
and time stands still, and so do I.

Read about Eva Marie Saint here

George Fenton - d. October 5th 2026

Wait, wait, I know this one; Bergerac.
Gandhi. Groundhog Day. I, Daniel Blake.
Composed, scored, played, proof
that we hear with square-eyes, that
we remember the lives we’ve seen
when we can whistle their theme.

Read about George Fenton here

Jeffrey Archer – d. October 5th 2026

The church clock stands
at ten to three; words are
priceless in the mouths
of chiselers and shysters.
The benches groan with
fabulists, and the book
writes the man. Nothing
of this, of course, is true.

Read about Jeffrey Archer here

Lena Martell – d. October 5th 2026

Yesterday’s gone; the ballrooms fall
to the wrecking balls of talent show
and karaoke. A woman takes the mic
and rakes among the ruins of a heart,
pokes at the embers of a gospel tune,
does every day what she has to do.

Read about Lena Martell here

Esther Rantzen – d. September 30th 2026

Turn down the volume on the froth;
the talking dogs, phallic vegetables,
odd odes and high street vox pops.
Do you hear it? A child, repeating
to themselves a telephone number
given out by a woman on TV with
wonky teeth, promising to answer.

Read about Esther Rantzen here

Peter May – d. September 25th 2026

The isles are full of bodies,
weighted down in dark lochans
or buried under lush machair.
The heart is a blackhouse, and
there is blood to be written of.

Read about Peter May here

Stephanie Cole – d. September 18th 2026

I speak as I find, and when I speak,
I find the voice of the woman inside;
matron and matriarch, hard-faced
yet tender-eyed, perfecting a look
that could sharpen a bread knife.

Read about Stephanie Cole here

Bonnie Greer – d. September 15th 2026

How to live without portfolio:

ask more questions, provide
fewer answers; disagree
agreeably; offer your truth
without assuming it to be
universal; counter hate with
reason; take it easy, but take it.

Read about Bonnie Greer here

Craig Douglas – d. September 4th 2026

Curtain up on another cabaret,
last chance for your counterfeit
nostalgia - hey, remember this?
This is the sound of long-soured
milk, memories of me at sixteen,
a time I was too young to know.

Read about Craig Douglas here

Richard O’Sullivan – d. September 4th 2026

It used to be that you could get by
on butter-wouldn’t-melt, playing it
light in heavy times, living over the
brush and under the thumb, with
hilarious consequences. That nest
is empty now; the birds have flown.

Read about Richard O'Sullivan here

Gloria Steinem – d. September 2nd 2026

Revolution first stirs in the head,
then the hearth, boardroom, bed,
even the womb. The just fight
rallies just fighters to the call, 
making activists out of us all,
not for a cause, but for a right.

Read about Gloria Steinem here

Tim Curry – d. August 25th 2026

A man falls to Earth from space,

not sure if he’s a boy or a girl.
He/She licks his/her lips, looks
straight (but not very) into the
camera, straight into us, saying
why don’t you stay for the night?

Read about Tim Curry here

Dolly Parton – d. August 25th 2026

Across the Smoky Mountains

I heard a voice like torn satin,
singing of good love gone bad,
how she could never love again.
I heard the heart of a country girl
break for the hundredth time,
and when she cried, she cried
rhinestones.

Read about Dolly Parton here

Billy Boston – d. August 24th 2026

A dark warrior bursts through floodlit dusk, 
like a wardrobe filled with lightning, stepping
away from hands that would dig his grave.
His path to the posts is a blur of light and
power, smiling as he reels the try-line in. 

Read about Billy Boston here

Frank Beard – d. August 17th 2026

They came out of the cantinas
and honky-tonks to see them,
that little ol’ band from Texas.
An old boy with bourbon breath
said man, that drummer, shuffle
as tight as a cheerleader’s tush,
backbeat like nails in my coffin.

Read about Frank Beard here

Gary Dwyer – d. August 10th 2026

Every so often the muses of a city
align; sound, attitude and rhythm,
all waiting for someone to pick up
the sticks, adjust the drum stool,
set the tempo for a song called
Everything is Possible, Here, now.

Read about Gary Dwyer here

Cheryl Hall – d. August 9th 2026

This is a Dear John letter from

the eternal girlfriend, eyes bright
as a mirror ball, a laugh in every
smile. She will love, but she will
never marry. At least, not you.

Read about Cheryl Hall here

Phyllida Law – d. July 27th 2026

Stage directions for life:
Enter as if everyone is waiting for you;
Treat each line of dialogue as a gift;
When a good actor cries, so does
the audience; Exit, but disgracefully.

Read about Phyllida Law here

Jimmy Cricket – d. August 3rd 2026

Me mammy used to tell me
there’s a living to be made
in buck eejitry. She told me
not knowing your left from
your right is the beginning
of wisdom. C’mere, I’ll tell
you more; there is no more. 

Read about Jimmy Cricket here

Vincent Pastore – d. August 1st 2026

Don’t imagine you can trust a Fed,
or tell me you’re just Joe Schmoe,
takin’ care of business. We both know
what a rat smells like, how he acts
like he’s on the up-an’-up. Face facts;
even the wisest guys wind up dead. 

Read about Vincent Pastore here

Franco Baresi – d. 31st July 2026

In Italia hanno costruito un muro,
l'hanno dipinto di rosso e nero.
Ecco lo spazio dove un tempo
stava la sua piccola sentinella
come un'ombra ostinata,
il suo braccio sollevata per far
scattare la trappola,
sbattere il cancello,
sprangare la porta.
 
In Italy they built a wall, painted it
red and black. Here is the space
where its little watchman once
stood like a stubborn shadow,
arm raised to spring the trap,
slam the gate, bolt the door. 

Read about Franco Baresi here

Glen Hansard – d. July 29th 2026

Some are born to ramble, guitar
in one hand, sheaf of lustrous
stories in the other, busking them
from Ballymun to Grafton Street to
Broadway, the rascal on the corner,
just across from the gates of Hell. 

Read about Glen Hansard here

Ronnie Le Drew – d. July 27th 2026

It takes much to create life from cloth;
the precise crook of a finger becomes
beckoning or refusal, flexing of palm
becomes imitation of life, the innocent
misdirection in which all have a hand.

Read about Ronnie Le Drew here

Tom Chadbon - d.July 25th 2026

There are times you must feel
there are no roles left to cast,
that all the best lines are gone.
The director says Back to one;
your first line becomes your last,
and your life plays as a demo reel.

Read about Tom Chadbon here

Bill Oddie – d. July 25th 2026

By night vision I saw something
under my old trandem; a creature,
mostly hair, gnawing at a black
pudding, a mating call something
between wonder and melancholy,
and I’m sorry, I looked at it again. 

Read about Bill Oddie here

Gunther von Hagens – d. July 24th 2026

This is the story of the heart:
of all the territories of the body,
whose hills and plains I know,
the interior is the province art
hesitates to claim. I am ready;
expose the places I fear to go. 

Read about Gunther von Hagens here

William Orbit – d. July 23rd 2026

Some music carries the strangest cargo;
bliss and heartbreak, glistening beats,
guitar like the strumming of a rainbow,
strings like a final breath, torch songs
for machines to fall in love with humans.

Read about William Orbit here

Kevin Keegan – d. July 20th 2026

A season’s lease has too short a date;
one moment you’re the miner’s lad,
then, weasel in ermine, ball twined to
your toe, then a legend on another
nation’s telly, finally preaching a gospel
with only one chapter, that reads
we’re-gonna-score-one-more-than-you.

Read about Kevin Keegan here

Edward Stourton – d. July 18th 2026

How many times have I switched off
as fakes and stooges tell it like it isn’t?
The world spins, and nothing feels true,
and then a light goes on - Mic Live - and
here is intellect and wit, the quiet spark. 

Read about Edward Stourton here

Garfield Sobers – d. July 17th 2026

Six for the straight drive.
Six for one that turns late.
Six for one that just clears the rope.
Six for one clean over the gasometer.
Six for the one hit all the way to Swansea.
Six for the grass that blooms where you passed.

Read about Garfield Sobers here

Brenda Fricker – d. July 16th 2026

We are casting from life today,
looking for someone who can
strain word and action through
the sieve of experience, real
as rain falling on a busy street.

Read about Brenda Fricker here

Sam Neill – d. July 13th 2026

Range is the rarest craft,
to know doctor and devil,
father, husband, monster,
and be everything of each,
to take us to places where
we won’t need eyes to see.

Read about Sam Neill here

Antonio Rattín – d. July 11th 2026

El temperamento es una expresión propia,
emblema del club o nación, y la furia de un
hombre es la «cultura del aguante» de otro.
El juego exige una cosa: La pasión,
cómo lo juegas y cómo te juega a ti.
 
Temperament is an expression of its own,
emblem of club or nation, and one man’s
fury is another man’s cultura del aguante.
The game demands one thing: La pasión,
how you play it, and how it plays you.

Read about Antonio Rattín here

Dermot Murnaghan – d. July 11th 2026

We interrupt this programme
for a news bulletin; not news
in itself, but news of the news,
neither politics nor murder
sweetened by commercials,
but the story of a real story.

Read about Dermot Murnaghan here

Wally Funk – d. July 8th 2026

I have been a disciple of the sky,
set out my own flight plan, cast
my own shadow over the earth,
slipped the surly bonds of men
and shown the face of a woman.

Read about Wally Funk here

Anne Widdecombe – d. July 8th 2026

Politics is a show dance; a burlesque act
where the costume fits more tightly with
every season. Rhythm is the first thing
to fail; swing to the right, then further,
until you can no longer hear the music. 

Read about Ann Widdecombe here

Bonnie Tyler – d. July 8th 2026

On the wind is a shredded voice,
someone else’s heartaches sung
like an old razor. Sometimes it burns
slowly, sometimes it’s an insatiable fire.
We know every word, despite ourselves
and every now and then, we sing too.

Read about Bonnie Tyler here

Ian Kennedy Martin – d. June 27th 2026

Write me a seedy London: nail-hard blaggers
staked out by cops in Jags, sleazy briefs and
easy housewives, trouserless pimps, and a
dubious double act; not comedy, but still funny.

Read about Ian Kennedy Martin here

Victor Willis - d. June 30th 2026

Maybe heaven is just a street corner
where young men can be who they are,
where discos open but never close,
where traffic stops to watch you dance.
It’s just up the street; follow the noise,
hang out with all the girls, all the boys. 

Read about Victor Willis here