5x15: Michael Rosen, Wendy Cope, Alan Johnson, Elif Shafak, Simon Singh

The name says it all: 5x15 puts five brilliant speakers onstage for 15 minutes each. Over the evening, they reveal the inspiration behind their greatest ideas, tell their favourite stories and elaborate upon their latest theories. Scripts are strictly forbidden. It isn’t only fun for the audience; many of 5x15’s speakers, like Jon Ronson, Will Self and Cerys Matthews, keep coming back for more. Most are authors, journalists and broadcasters, but the occasional chef, politician or comedian pops up. Packing such variety into so short a time is a clearly devious equation for entertainment and enlightenment.
The speakers
For the second-to-last event of 2015, best-selling author and former Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen talks about his good ideas, one of which must surely be our childhood favourite, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
Poet Wendy Cope chooses ‘Life, love and the Archers’ (we wonder what she makes of the Tom Archer debacle) and, making her fifth appearance at 5x15, Elif Shafak, Turkey’s most-read female storyteller, takes on the topic of imagination.
We’re particularly excited by physicist Simon Singh’s intriguing talk on ‘Maths and The Simpsons’; he plans to reveal how the Springfield’s creators have sneakily explored everything from geometry to game theory, calculus to infinity in the TV show. Finally, completing the set is politician Alan Johnson, speaking about life as a postman in Slough, the subject of his recently published second memoir, Please, Mister Postman.
As ever, the spontaneous, fast-paced fun of the 5x15 format promises an intense cultural hit that will leave your brain buzzing.