10 November 2011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA DIARY NOTE: PROMINENT PANELLISTS TO FEATURE IN ‘QUESTION TIME AT THE LJS’ CHARITY EVENT
The Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St. John’s Wood, North West London is to hold a special ‘Question Time’ event, based on the popular TV programme, on Sunday 20th November 2011 at 7 p.m. This is part of the synagogue’s Centenary celebrations running throughout this year and will feature prominent public figures answering questions from the audience.
On the panel are:
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty
Max Hastings, author, journalist and broadcaster
Nicholas Hytner, Director of the National Theatre
Martin Lewis, journalist and creator of MoneySavingExpert.com
Libby Purves, The Times columnist and theatre critic, radio presenter and author
With radio and television broadcaster Nick Ross in the chair
The LJS as it is often known is the oldest and largest Liberal community in the UK and was founded in 1911. Many hundreds of people are expected to attend this event. This will be held in the synagogue’s strikingly beautiful modern sanctuary, which is lined with Jerusalem stone and boasts ramps, induction loops and other facilities making it fully accessible for the disabled.
Following the event a press release and image will be distributed to the LJS media mailing list on Monday 21st November 2011 and will also be available at www.ljsmediacentre.org.
* For further details about the participants and media coverage of this event please see Listings Information and Notes to Editors.
The synagogue’s Rabbi Emeritus David Goldberg who is organising it said, ‘In its 100 year history The LJS has always been at the cutting edge of fearless theological, social and political debate. With panellists of such varied views and hard-hitting questions from the audience, this promises to be a stimulating and controversial evening.’
Tickets for ‘Question Time at the LJS’ are available online through Eventbrite via www.ljsquestiontime.com (booking fee) or by calling the synagogue on 0207 7286 5181.
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Caroline Bach, Executive Director, at 020 7286 5181, email press@ljs.org or visit the synagogue’s media centre for professional journalists at www.ljsmediacentre.org or the synagogue’s main website at www.ljs.org
Please note there will be restrictions on coverage of the event itself.
Listings information
Sunday 20 November 2011, The Liberal Jewish Synagogue, London, 7.00PM
Question Time at the LJS
An enjoyable topical debate based on the popular TV programme, featuring prominent public figures answering questions from the audience.
On the panel:
Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty
Max Hastings, author, journalist and broadcaster
Nicholas Hytner, Director of the National Theatre
Martin Lewis, journalist and creator of MoneySavingExpert.com
Libby Purves, The Times columnist and theatre critic, radio presenter and author
With radio and television broadcaster Nick Ross in the chair
Tickets £15 (unreserved seat) including light refreshments available from the LJS on 020 7286 5181 or reception@ljs.org, or online at www.ljsquestiontime.com (plus £1.55 booking fee)
In aid of the LJS Centenary Appeal
Please note: programme may be subject to change.
Venue
The Liberal Jewish Synagogue
28 St. John’s Wood Road
London NW8 7HA
England
Notes to editors:
1. The Liberal Jewish Synagogue is located in St. John's Wood, North West London. It is the oldest and largest Liberal community in the UK. The synagogue’s first service was held on Saturday 4th February 1911. Over the past one hundred years it has been acclaimed as one of the world’s leading congregations. It is the founding congregation of Liberal Judaism in the UK and is allied to the World Union for Progressive Judaism – the world’s largest synagogue organisation with over 1.5 million members.
2. Shami Chakrabarti has been Director of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties) since September 2003. Shami first joined Liberty as In-House Counsel on 10 September 2001. She became heavily involved in its engagement with the “War on Terror” and with the defence and promotion of human rights values in Parliament, the Courts and wider society.
A Barrister by background, she was called to the Bar in 1994 and worked as a lawyer in the Home Office from 1996 until 2001 for Governments of both persuasions.
Since becoming Liberty’s Director she has written, spoken and broadcast widely on the importance of the post-WW2 human rights framework as an essential component of democratic society.
She is Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University, a Governor of the British Film Institute, and a Visiting Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford in addition to being a Master of the Bench of Middle Temple. She was recently selected to be one of the 6 independent panel members investigating phone hacking as part of Lord Leveson’s enquiry.
3. Sir Max Hastings is an author, journalist and broadcaster whose work has appeared in every British national newspaper. He now writes regularly for the Daily Mail and Financial Times, of which he is a contributing editor, and reviews books for the Sunday Times. He has published twenty-three books, of which the most recent are ALL HELL LET LOOSE: The World at War 1939-1945 (2011); DID YOU REALLY SHOOT THE TELEVISION ?: A Family Fable (2010); FINEST YEARS: Churchill As Warlord 1940-45 (2009); ARMAGEDDON: The Battle for Germany 1944-45 (2004) and NEMESIS: The Battle For Japan 1944-45 (2007). The son and grandson of writers, he was educated at Charterhouse (scholar) and University College, Oxford (exhibitioner), from which he dropped out to become a journalist. In 1967-68 he worked in the US after winning a World Press Institute fellowship, an experience which inspired his first book AMERICA 1968:The Fire This Time, published when he was 23.
Thereafter, he spent most of his early years as a foreign correspondent for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard, reporting eleven conflicts, notably including Vietnam and the 1982 South Atlantic war, which inspired BATTLE FOR THE FALKLANDS, the 1983 best-seller he wrote with Simon Jenkins. He was editor, then editor-in-chief, of The Daily Telegraph from 1986-1995, and of the Evening Standard 1996-2002. He has described his journalistic career in two memoirs, GOING TO THE WARS (2000) and EDITOR (2002). His history of World War II INFERNO will be published in 2011.
He has received awards both for his books and journalism. BOMBER COMMAND (1979) won the Somerset Maugham Prize. He was Journalist Of The Year and Reporter of the Year in the 1982 British Press Awards, and Editor Of The Year in 1988.
More recently, in 2008 he received the Westminster Medal of the RUSI for his lifetime contribution to Military Literature, and in 2009 the Edgar Wallace Trophy of the London Press Club.
He has presented many TV documentaries. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, London, he has also received honorary degrees from Leicester and Nottingham universities. He was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England 2002-2007, and a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery 1995-2004. He was knighted in 2002 for services to journalism. Now 65, he has two grown-up children and lives with his wife Penny in West Berkshire, where they garden enthusiastically.
4. Sir Nicholas Hytner is Director of the National Theatre. His work includes productions at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter, Leeds Playhouse, and the Royal Exchange, Manchester, where he was Associate Director. He has directed Measure for Measure, The Tempest and King Lear for the RSC. For the National: Ghetto, The Wind in the Willows, The Madness of George III, The Recruiting Officer, Carousel, The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Winter’s Tale, Mother Clap’s Molly House, and, as Director of the NT: Henry V, His Dark Materials, The History Boys, Stuff Happens, Henry IV Parts 1 & 2, Southwark Fair, The Alchemist, The Man of Mode, The Rose Tattoo, Rafta, Rafta..., Much Ado About Nothing, Major Barbara, England People Very Nice, Phèdre, The Habit of Art, London Assurance, Hamlet and One Man, Two Guvnors. Other work in London includes Miss Saigon, The Importance of Being Earnest, Cressida, The Lady in the Van, and Orpheus Descending; in New York Carousel, Twelfth Night, and Sweet Smell of Success. His work in opera includes productions for The Royal Opera House, Kent Opera, ENO, Glyndebourne, Paris Opera, the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, Geneva Opera, and the Bavarian State Opera, Munich. Films: The Madness of King George, The Crucible, The Object of My Affection and The History Boys.
5. Martin Lewis, Money Saving Expert, is a broadcaster and campaigning journalist who created MoneySavingExpert.com, the UK’s biggest money website, which has almost 10 million monthly unique users and over 6 million have opted to receive his weekly e-mail.
He’s the UK’s most searched man, Citizens Advice Consumer Champion of the year, has spearheaded major financial justice campaigns including bank charges reclaiming (over 6m template letters downloaded) and PPI reclaiming (over 1m). He is currently behind a large scale campaign to get financial education in schools, and heads up the Independent Taskforce of Student Finance Information.
His broadcast work includes Watchdog, Daybreak, Lorraine, Radio 2 and Radio 5.
6. Libby Purves is currently a columnist and Chief Theatre Critic for the Times, and has presented Radio 4's Today programme in the 1980s and, for the last 27 years, the talk show MIDWEEK. She is the author of 12 novels and several non-fiction works including HOLY SMOKE, a memoir of religious upbringing. She is married to Paul Heiney and has one daughter, Rose Heiney, and one son (deceased) the writer Nicholas Heiney. She was educated in Israel, Bangkok, Lille, Tunbridge Wells and St Anne's College Oxford, where she read English.
7. Nick Ross (Chairman) was one of the most ubiquitous broadcasters in the 1980s and 90s presenting World at One, Newsnight, A Week in Politics, Westminster with Nick Ross, and launching Watchdog and breakfast TV, but he is best known for Call Nick Ross on Radio 4 and Crimewatch on BBC One which he presented from 1984 to 2007. He continues to broadcast, founded the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science at UCL and is chairman, trustee or patron of some two dozen charities.