Jessica Fostekew is a comedian, actor and writer whose latest stand up show 'Hench' was nominated for the Dave Edinburgh Comedy Award 'Best Show' in August this year. You've seen her on BBC's Live at the Apollo, in the sitcoms 'Motherland' and 'Cuckoo' and heard her on behemoth podcast 'The Guilty Feminist', her own podcast 'Hoovering' and on BBC R4's 'News Quiz' and 'Museum of Curiosity'.

Ayesha Hazarika MBE is a columnist and broadcaster who is known for her insightful and witty opinions and observations on current affairs and politics. Having started her career as a stand-up comedian playing clubs across the country, she then took what she thought was a natural diversion into politics as a Special Adviser for the Labour Party, working with them for eight years both in Government and Opposition. In print Ayesha is the Editor of the Evening Standard’s The Londoner, and writes a weekly column for the Evening Standard and has contributed to The Scotsman, FT, Guardian, New Statesman and Grazia. In 2018 she took her new show Girl on Girl – The Fight for Feminism on tour across the UK including a week’s run at the Soho Theatre which followed a successful two week run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Ayesha’s show Tales from the Pink Bus was a sell-out hit at the 2016 Edinburgh Festival and the Women of the World at the Southbank Centre, and was extended as State of the Nation which lifts the lid on what life was really like behind the scenes at Westminster with brutal honesty and humour.

Bethany Black has been a professional stand-up comedian since 2004. Over the course of her career she has performed alongside some of the biggest names in comedy, including Alan Carr, Sarah Millican, Tim Minchin and Rhys Darby.  In 2015 she was cast as Helen in Russell T Davies' multi channel shows CUCUMBER, BANANA and TOFU where she was the first trans actress to play a leading role. 

Jo is the author of 100 works in every dramatic medium. Her work has been translated into many languages and has been performed all over the world.

Her plays include THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS QUEEN OF HEAVEN, EVE (co-written with Chris Goode, National Theatre of Scotland), THE TAMING OF THE SHREW (Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, & Tron Theatre, Glasgow).

For radio, Jo has written FIVE DAYS WHICH CHANGED EVERYTHING, SPAM FRITTERS, WRITING HOME TO MOTHER, MADELEINE, AIN’T IT GRAND TO BE BLOOMIN’ WELL DEAD, and ENDING TIME, and has adapted BALTASAR AND BLIMUNDA and THE LEOPARD among many others.

Last year she performed EVE in Dundee Rep, the Nairn Festival, and the International Theatre Festival in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Her GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JESUS QUEEN OF HEAVEN was touring Brazil continuously for the past three years but in the present repressive climate is too dangerous to be performed there. Recently she has performed the play in the Traverse (as their Christmas show), in Glasgow University Chapel, the Theatre de la Vie in Brussels, and will be performing it again for a week’s celebrations of the play’s tenth anniversary in the Tron Theatre in Glasgow.

Born in Nigeria, Inua Ellams is a cross art form practitioner, a poet, playwright & performer, graphic artist & designer and founder of the Midnight Run — an international, arts-filled, night-time, playful, urban, walking experience. He is a Complete Works poet alumni and a designer at White Space Creative Agency. Across his work, Identity, Displacement & Destiny are reoccurring themes in which he also tries to mix the old with the new: traditional african storytelling with contemporary poetry, pencil with pixel, texture with vector images. His poetry is published by Flipped Eye, Akashic, Nine Arches & several plays by Oberon.

Nesrine Malik is a British Sudanese columnist and features writer for the Guardian. She was born in Sudan and grew up in Kenya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. She received her undergraduate education at the American University in Cairo and University of Khartoum, and her post graduate education at the University of London. Alongside her journalistic career she previously spent ten years in emerging markets private equity. She was named Society and Diversity Commentator of the Year at the 2017 Comment Awards. She lives in London.