2025 Talks Line up
See the FULL Programme here.
We’re excited to announce the very first speakers for the 2025 Chalke History Festival. Sign up to the Festival newsletter for all the latest updates here.
Talks Programme
All talks are now included in the price of your festival entry.
Seating will be filled on a first come, first served basis. To reserve a seat, please consider becoming a member of the Chalke History Club.
Keep an eye on this page for all the latest speaker announcements!
Anthony Scaramucci
Anthony ‘The Mooch’ Scaramucci is an entrepreneur and thought leader with broad interests and a restless mind. He served briefly as President Trump’s Director of Communications, in 2017, and is now an outspoken critic. Anthony is a prolific podcaster, author, and founder of global investment platform SkyBridge. His talks at the festival, on Trump and US Presidents, are sure to be both highly entertaining and thought-provoking.
Michael Palin
We are thrilled to welcome back beloved author, TV icon and Monty Python star, Michael Palin. He has been gracing the stage and our screens for over 50 years, with his iconic travel documentaries and comedy shows. Join Michael Palin at the festival as he offers a captivating glimpse into a decade of change, challenge, and adventure in ‘There And Back: Diaries 1999-2009’, on Tuesday 24 June at 16:45.
Ian Hislop
Festival favourite and (dare we say it) national treasure Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye and team captain of Have I Got News for You, is back at Chalke to take a hilarious look at some of Britain’s oldest jokes and guide us through some of the vital elements that make up that most curious thing: the British sense of humour. This event is a must for anyone who loves a good belly laugh.
Al Murray
The Pub Landlord returns! Al Murray will be making a riotous return to Chalke with his unique take on the past – as we all know history is written by the winners and French history books are blank from cover to cover – for his Finley’s Touch fundraiser. He’ll also be joining forces with his We Have Ways co-host, James Holland to chat about their brand-new book, Victory ’45: The End of the War in 8 Surrenders.
Gill Hornby
To mark the 250th anniversary of the birth of Jane Austen, we are pleased to welcome Gill Hornby – best-selling author of a series of novels which take readers into the world of Jane Austen. Her lastest novel ‘Miss Austen’ was recently adapted for a four-part BBC drama marking the anniversary. At this year’s festival she will talking to Helena Kelly about the woman behind the myth and what her novels can tell us about real life in Regency Britain.
Kevin McCloud
Kevin McCloud is best known for presenting the internationally acclaimed series Grand Designs. Running on Channel 4 for 25 years, it is now shown to audiences around the world. Kevin has written several books on design and champions sustainable development, context, the historic environment, and ecological construction. He was awarded an MBE in 2014 for his services to architecture and sustainability.
Kate Mosse
Kate Mosse is a No.1 international bestselling novelist, playwright and non-fiction writer. In 2005 her best-selling novel, Labyrinth, took the world by storm selling more than 10 million copies in 37 languages. In her one-off illustrated event specifically for Chalke, Mosse will bring the history behind Labyrinth, the brutal 1209 Albigensian Crusade, to life with her trademark blend of intrigue, adventure, family history and meticulous research. Don’t miss this chance to hear from one of the UK’s most celebrated authors.
Tom Holland
Tom Holland is an award-winning historian, and one of our the best known and most loved authors and broadcasters. He co-hosts, the globally chart-topping history podcast ‘The Rest is History’, with Dominic Sandbrook. In 2007, he was the winner of the Classical Association prize, awarded to ‘the individual who has done most to promote the study of the language, literature and civilisation of Ancient Greece and Rome’.
Michael Gove
Michael Gove is one of the most consequential British politicians this century: pioneer, reformer, and changemaker. He occupied numerous cabinet positions during his nearly twenty years serving as an Conservative MP and spearheaded the “Vote Leave” campaign, which saw the United Kingdom leave the European Union. He is now editor of The Spectator magazine. In his event at this years’ festival, Michael Gove will talk about his time in Parliament, sharing insights, thoughts and opinion not only on what has been but what also lies in the future.
Alice Loxton
Alice Loxton is a 29 year old history broadcaster and author with over three million followers on social media (@history_alice), where she educates on British history and heritage. Her latest book, “Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives”, was Blackwell’s Book of the Year 2024. She’ll be bringing her knowledge and insight to a number of events at the festival, including ‘1066: And All What? Important Dates in British History’, and ‘History Gossip: was Anne Cleves a Minger’.
Antony Beevor
Antony Beevor is a best-selling author and well-known for writing on the Second World World. He was a regular in the 11th Hussars and his book Stalingrad was awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Wolfson History Prize and the Hawthornden Prize. In this 80th anniversary year of the end of the Second World War, we are proud to be welcoming Antony Beevor back to discuss one of the most momentous moments of 20th century history. Beevor’s account of the Battle for Berlin, first published back in 2007, remains the unrivalled account of this terrible end to Nazi Germany.
Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson served as a Labour MP in the UK parliament for nearly 20 years, occupying a variety of Cabinet positions. He has published numerous books, including “Harold Wilson: Twentieth Century Man”, about the former British Prime Minister.
Peter Frankopan
Peter Frankopan is a British historian and writer. He is professor of global history at Worcester College, Oxford and best known for his 2015 book – Silk Roads. His latest book, a history of the effects of a changing climate on civilisations across time, is called The Earth Transformed.
William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple is a Scottish historian and writer, art historian and curator, as well as a prominent broadcaster and critic. His books have won numerous awards and prizes. He presents on the Empire podcast alongside Anita Anand.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Lucy Hughes-Hallett is a British historian and author. Her most recent book, The Scapegoat, looks at the rise and fall of the Duke of Buckingham – lover and confidant of James I, and favourite of Charles I.
Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson is British-American historian – the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and a senior faculty fellow of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. He has authored sixteen books, the latest of which is Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe.
Tom Parker-Bowles
Tom Parker-Bowles is a British food writer and critic, and the author of numerous popular recipe books.
Helen Castor
Helen Castor is a prize-winning medieval and Tudor, historian and broadcaster.
Ben Macintyre
Ben Macintyre is a journalist, broadcaster and best-selling author of works spanning Modern History – including Operation Mincemeat.
Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale is a journalist and award-winning author, best known for her non-fiction work including The Suspicions of Mr Whicher.
Tracy Borman
Tracy Borman is a best-selling author, historian and broadcaster, specialising in the Tudor period. Tracy is also Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces. Her latest book is entitled, “Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History”.
The Alphen Group
A network of leading strategic thinkers from Europe and the United States, working to consider the future of the trans-Atlantic relationship and European security and defence.
Alex Bescoby
Alex Bescoby is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, writer and presenter with a love of history, travel and storytelling.
Max Hastings
Max Hastings is a journalist and historian, who has authored over thirty books, mostly about the Second World War.
Helen Thompson
Helen Thompson is Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University. She has authored numerous books, the latest of which is Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century. She is a columnist for the New Statesmen and co-presenter of UnHerd’s These Times.
Laurence Rees
Laurence Rees is the bestselling author of several acclaimed books on the Second World War and a former Head of BBC TV History programmes. His work includes the television series and bestselling books The Nazis: A Warning from History, and Auschwitz: The Nazis and the ‘Final Solution’. In his talk at this years’ festival, ‘The Nazi Mind: 12 Warnings from History’, Rees traces the rise and fall of the Nazis, revealing how individuals became complicit in genocide.
