Latitude Festival – Charlie Mackesy, Mark Kermode, Raymond Antrobus and more join the line up!

Charlie Mackesy, Mark Kermode, Booker Prize Judge Raymond Antrobus and more join your arts line up!

Today marks one month to go until we reach our 20th anniversary, and we’re thrilled to welcome even more brilliant minds, speakers and artists to your weekend of festivities.

The Booker Prize returns to Latitude for the second year with an exclusive event featuring Raymond Antrobus MBE, award-winning poet, writer and 2026 Booker Prize judge, in conversation with Gaby Wood, Booker Prize Foundation chief executive and journalist. They will discuss his reading journey, his wide-ranging work investigating themes of sound, language, family and memory, his memoir The Quiet Ear, a ground-breaking exploration of deafness, and his experience judging the prize ahead of this year’s longlist announcement on 28th July.

Charlie Mackesy OBE returns to Latitude, following his crowning as our Most Important Illustrator of the last 20 years. Artist, author and Oscar-winner, his animated short film of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short in 2023. Mackesy brings his celebrated live show to the Theatre Arena: an hour of drawing and conversation, bringing his beloved characters to life on stage.

Across the weekend, a significant wave of new names has been added to The Listening Post, including the return of Adam Buxton’s BUG, his celebrated big-screen music video show, currently selling out venues across the UK in a run of artist-specific special editions. A Latitude favourite since the early years of the festival, BUG returns with a David Byrne Special featuring Ivo Graham.

Mark Kermode, one of Latitude’s most beloved regulars, returns to Henham Park. Author, broadcaster, and one of the most distinctive voices in British film criticism for three decades, he reunites with his Kermode on Film podcast collaborator Jack Howard.

The Independent presents In The Room, the hit weekly podcast hosted by former Deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara and former Deputy Chief of Staff to Boris Johnson Cleo Watson, live at The Listening Post. Two former Westminster insiders who were actually in the room when the biggest decisions of recent British political history were made, their forensic, funny and bracingly candid take on power arrives at Henham Park at one of the most charged moments in recent political memory.

John Pienaar, former BBC Deputy Political Editor and host of Pienaar and Friends on Times Radio, one of the most trusted voices in British political journalism across three decades, joins The Listening Post as the nation tries to make sense of what comes next.

Emily Woof, actress, novelist, playwright and performer whose screen credits include The Full Monty and Velvet Goldmine, joins The Listening Post ahead of the August 2026 publication of her third novel, Ecstatic.

Girls on Film, the acclaimed feminist film discussion hosted by Anna Smith return with their sharp and celebratory take on women in cinema.

Grace Willow, spoken-word artist, mental health advocate and host of the Greenpeace Stage at Glastonbury, and Alice Hopkins, BBC Radio 1 presenter and broadcaster, return as co-hosts of The Listening Post across the weekend.

The Cosmic Shambles Forest of Science and Culture adds some of the most urgent scientific minds and extraordinary performers working today to Henham Park.

Dr Lucy Van Dorp, Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Genetics Institute, is one of the world’s leading experts in microbial genomics and the tracking of infectious disease through DNA. Her work mapping the spread of SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic placed her at the centre of one of the most significant scientific endeavours of the 21st century.

Prof Jasmin Fisher, Professor of Computational Biology at the UCL Cancer Institute, leads the Fisher Lab, which develops computational models to study cancer evolution and identify new personalised treatments. A pioneer of the field she founded, Executable Biology, her work brings the methods of computer science to bear on some of the most complex questions in medicine.

The new musical additions to the Forest are equally extraordinary. Sanju Sahai, one of the world’s most celebrated tabla players, brings a singular presence to Henham Park. A direct descendant of Pandit Ram Sahai, founder of the Benares Gharana, and the sixth generation of tabla player in his family, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, Glastonbury Festival and for the Queen and Prince Charles at Highgrove.

Suns of the Tundra, the London and Cardiff-based progressive metal band whose roots stretch back to 1990s shoe-grunge pioneers Peach GB, join the Forest line up.

Hattie Snooks, singer, songwriter, theatre-maker and one half of music duo Queen Mab, completes the new additions.

Disco Yoga also returns to The Waterfront, bringing its joyful blend of movement, music and sunshine to Henham Park.

Limited tickets remain for our 20th edition; secure yours now at the link below. We’ll see you in one month!

With Love,
The Latitude Festival Team