Michael Symmons Roberts

Michael Symmons Roberts FRSL (born 1963 in Preston, Lancashire) is a British poet.

He has published six collections of poetry, all with Cape (Random House), and has won the Forward Prize, the Costa Book Award and the Whitbread Prize for Poetry, as well as major prizes from the Arts Council and Society of Authors. He has been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Ondaatje Prize. He has also written novels, libretti and texts for oratorios and song cycles. He regularly writes and presents documentaries and dramas for broadcasting and is Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Life and career

Michael Symmons Roberts spent his childhood in Lancashire before moving south with his family to Newbury in Berkshire in the early ‘70s. He went to comprehensive school in Newbury, then to Regent's Park College, Oxford to read Philosophy and Theology. After graduating, he trained as a newspaper journalist before joining the BBC in Cardiff as a radio producer in 1989. He moved with the BBC to London, then to Manchester, initially in radio, then as a documentary filmmaker. His last job at the corporation was as Executive Producer and Head of Development for BBC Religion and Ethics, before he left the BBC to focus on writing.

Helena Bonham Carter

Helena Bonham Carter, CBE (born 26 May 1966) is a British actress. She made her name as an actress in a television adaptation of K. M. Peyton's A Pattern of Roses, before her film debut as the titular character in Lady Jane. She is best known for her roles in films such as A Room with a View, Fight Club, The King's Speech, and playing Bellatrix Lestrange in the Harry Potter series. She has frequently collaborated with director Tim Burton, in films Planet of the Apes, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Alice in Wonderland, and Dark Shadows. In 2012, she played Miss Havisham in Great Expectations and Madame Thénardier in Les Misérables, and in 2015 the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella.

A two-time Academy Award nominee for her performances as Kate Croy in The Wings of the Dove and as Queen Elizabeth in The King's Speech, Bonham Carter's acting has been further recognised with seven Golden Globe nominations, an International Emmy Award for best actress, three Primetime Emmy Award nominations, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year honours list for services to drama, and received the honour from the Queen at Buckingham Palace on 22 February 2012.

Brian May

Brian Harold May, CBE (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician, singer, songwriter and astrophysicist, best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. He uses a home-built electric guitar, called the Red Special. His compositions for the band include "We Will Rock You", "Tie Your Mother Down", "I Want It All", "Fat Bottomed Girls", "The Prophet's Song", "Flash", "Hammer to Fall", "Save Me", "Who Wants to Live Forever" and "The Show Must Go On".

May was a co-founder of Queen with lead singer Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor, having previously performed with Taylor in the band Smile, which he had joined while he was at university. Within five years of their formation in 1970 and the recruitment of bass player John Deacon completing the lineup, Queen had become established as one of the biggest rock bands in Britain with the album A Night at the Opera and its single "Bohemian Rhapsody". From the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, Queen were an almost constant presence in the UK charts and played some of the biggest venues in the world, most notably giving an acclaimed performance at Live Aid in 1985. As a member of Queen, May became regarded as a virtuoso musician and he was identified with a distinctive sound created through his layered guitar work. Following the death of Mercury in 1991, Queen were put on hiatus for several years but were eventually reconvened by May and Taylor for further performances featuring other vocalists. In 2005, a Planet Rock poll saw May voted the 7th greatest guitarist of all time. He was ranked at No. 26 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In 2012, May was ranked the 2nd greatest guitarist of all time by a Guitar World magazine readers poll.