Ovid (full name Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE - 17 CE) was a Roman poet noted especially for his Ars amatoria and Metamorphoses.

Alex Owen is an actor, writer and comedian. He is half of the comedy double-act, The Pin, with Ben Ashenden, with whom he has made four series for BBC Radio 4, winner of the BBC Radio Award for Best Comedy. They have also created an original programme for Audible, The Special Relationship, and an animated series for BBC 3, Oi, Leonardo!

Their play, The Comeback, premiered at the Noël Coward Theatre in London's West End in 2020.

Kwame Owusu is a playwright and theatre director based in London.

He is the author of plays including Dreaming and Drowning (Bush Theatre, London, 2023; Winner of the Mustapha Matura Award 2022) and Horizon (Bush Young Company at the Bush Theatre, 2022).

Michael Palin established his reputation with Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Ripping Yarns. His work also includes several films with Monty Python, as well as The Missionary, A Private Function, an award-winning performance as the hapless Ken in A Fish Called Wanda, American Friends and Fierce Creatures.

His television credits include two films for the BBC’s Great Railway Journeys, the plays East of Ipswich and Number 27, Alan Bleasdale’s GBH, and the three-part BBC drama, Remember Me.

He has written books to accompany his eight very successful travel series, Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, Full Circle, Hemingway Adventure, Sahara, Himalaya, New Europe and Brazil. He is also the author of a number of children’s stories, the play The Weekend, and the novels Hemingway’s Chair and The Truth. Michael’s three volumes of diaries are 1969–1979: The Python Years, 1980–1988: Halfway to Hollywood and 1988–1998: Travelling to Work.

In 2014, Michael and his fellow Pythons performed a ten-night sell-out show called Monty Python Live at the O2 Arena, London. Between 2009 and 2012, Michael was President of the Royal Geographical Society. 

(Photo by John Swannell)

Gail Pallin began her career at The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, and has worked and toured as a Stage Manager with many of the major companies throughout Britain, including The Royal Court, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, and the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester. She has also directed various productions with youth and community groups in Scotland.

She lectured at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, and then Fife College for 25 years and was on the board of the Stage Management Association.

She now runs a business CallQ, which provides show caller training software to drama schools, universities and the profession across twelve countries. She is a trustee at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Suzan-Lori Parks is a leading American playwright. Her numerous plays include Father Comes Home From the Wars (2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist), The Book of Grace, Topdog/Underdog (2002 Pulitzer Prize), In the Blood (2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist), Venus (1996 OBIE Award), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World, Fucking A, Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1990 OBIE Award for Best New American Play) and The America Play. Her work on The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess earned the production a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical in 2012. In 2007 her 365 Plays/365 Days was produced in more than seven hundred theatres worldwide, creating one of the largest grassroots collaborations in theatre history.

Named one of TIME magazine’s '100 Innovators for the Next New Wave', in 2002 Suzan-Lori Parks became the first African American woman to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her Broadway hit Topdog/Underdog. She was the 2018 recipient of the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award.

Amanda Parris is a writer for the stage and screen, as well as a television and radio host. Her debut play, Other Side of the Game, was premiered at Aki Studio Theatre, co-produced by Cahoots Theatre and Obsidian Theatre Company in 2017. It won the Governor General's Literary Award in 2019.

She is the co-founder of the award-winning alternative education organisation Lost Lyrics and worked with the Remix Project and the Manifesto Festival. She has spoken about her work at United Nations conferences around the world.

Lisa Parry is a playwright based in Cardiff, whose work has been widely performed by leading new-writing theatres throughout the UK. Her plays include The Merthyr Stigmatist (Sherman Theatre Cardiff & Theatre Uncut, 2021) and 2023 (Illumine Theatre, 2018).