This event complements the British Library exhibition Fantasy: Realms of Imagination (27 October – 25 February).
Mackenzie Davis’ breakthrough role was in the 2013 feature film, Breathe In. She went on to star as Cameron Howe in 40 episodes of TV drama series Halt and Catch Fire. In 2021 her role in the post-apocalyptic series Station Eleven, earned her a Critics Choice Award for Best Actress. Her leading film roles include: Mariette in Blade Runner 2049; Grace, in Terminator Dark Fate; co-starring with Kristen Stewart in rom-com Happiest Season. And, the recently released Swimming Home. In Spring 2023 Mackenzie played Isolde in Phaedra at the National Theatre, London.
Shirley Henderson is a multi award-winning Scottish stage and screen actress, perhaps, best known as Moaning Myrtle in the Harry Potter films, and as Renee Zellweger’s sidekick Jude in the Bridget Jones films. Recently, she starred with Rufus Sewell and Olivia Williams in The Trouble With Jessica. Her other film credits include Stan And Ollie, Filth, Frozen, Once Upon A Time In The Midlands, 24 Hour Party People and Trainspotting. Her TV credits include Star Wars: Episode IX, Happy Valley, Southcliffe, The Nest and The House Across The Street. Shirley won an Olivier Award for Leading Actress in Conor McPherson’s Girl From The North Country.
Felicity Jones began her acting career at the age of twelve in The Treasure Seekers. She played Emma Grundy in The Archers on BBC Radio while studying English at the University of Oxford. She later won the Sundance Special Jury Prize for her performance in Like Crazy, and an Empire Award for Best Actress for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Her leading role as Jane Wilde Hawking in The Theory of Everything earned her Best Actress nominations for BAFTA, Golden Globe, Oscar, and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Her other feature films include Rogue One, On the Basis of Sex, A Monster Calls, The Invisible Woman, and Dead Shot.
Patrick Kennedy, a Poetry Hour stalwart, has just finished filming Senna and The Day of the Jackal. His other film credits include Stephen Spielberg’s Warhorse, and Atonement. Amongst his many television credits are Mrs. Wilson, the BBC’s Bleak House, Miss Marx, Peep Show, the Netflix mini series The Queen’s Gambit, and Boardwalk Empire, for which he was a Screen Actors’ Guild Award nominee.
Christina Georgina Rossetti was born in London to Italian parents on December 5, 1830. Her father was the poet Gabriel Rossetti, her brothers Dante Gabriel Rossetti, also, a poet and painter, and William Michael Rossetti formed the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and her sister Maria Franchesca, was an acclaimed biographer of Dante.
Rossetti wrote her first poems aged 12, her best known work, the fantastical Goblin Market and Other Poems (Macmillan) was published in 1862, and established her as a significant Victorian poet. Other collections followed in 1866, 1872 and 1881. After years of failing health Rossetti died of cancer in London on December 29, 1894. Her brother, William Michael Rossetti, who had co-founded the journal ‘The Germ’, edited her collected works in 1904.
Doors and Bar open at 18:00. The performance will be simultaneously live streamed on the British Library platform. Book tickets to attend in person or online.
Half price tickets available for British Library Members, students, under 26s and other concession groups.
Presented in partnership with the British Library.
20 February 2024 7:00 pm
British Library