Blue Plaques Talk Back, featuring Mishal Husain, Nish Kumar and more to be announced

New Names Announced! Mishal Husain and Nish Kumar

Blue Plaques Talk Back returns to Chelsea Arts Festival following their riveting launch event at the festival in 2025.  This unique, immersive, live show celebrates four iconic – or intriguingly overlooked – blue plaques, chosen specifically for their connection to the surrounding neighbourhood. The result is a performance of history and culture, brought vividly to life.

Mishal Husain, celebrated broadcaster, writer and journalist, will be in conversation reflecting on the legacy of one of the Twentieth Century’s defining political figures Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of independent India. Husain’s personal family history of the 1947 Partition of Pakistan and India, is documented in her poignant memoir Broken Threads: My Family from Empire to Independence. The book traces the lives of her four grandparents during the fall of the British Empire.

Critically Acclaimed Comedian, TV Presenter, and Podcaster Nish Kumar, joins the event to discuss the Blue Plaque of his idol Jimi Hendrix, the guitarist and songwriter whose influence on music endures to this day.

At each event, stories behind the plaques are transformed into short, dramatic performances by professional actors.  These theatrical moments are then followed by in-depth, informal conversations with distinguished guests – figures whose lives or careers have been shaped, inspired, or touched by the individual commemorated on the plaque.

Blue Plaques Talk Back live is brilliantly hosted by Hannah MacInnes, broadcaster, journalist and podcaster, who has conducted interviews with hundreds of figures from culture and politics. She regularly appears on Times Radio and currently leads the How To Academy‘s live events schedule and podcast series. Her writing has featured in the Radio Times, The Standard, TLS, and writes on Substack as The Conversationist.

More speakers to be announced soon.

Last year Sir Stephen Fry joined Hannah MacInnes in conversation about Oscar Wilde, Dennis Morris on Bob Marley, Lyse Doucet on Martha Gellhorn, and Kathryn Hughes on George Eliot.  

Blue Plaques Talk Back is produced by Storystock Sounds. Find out more at www.storystocksounds.com

*Please note, all artists will appear subject to availability. Artists listed are correct at time of going to publication, in the unlikely event that an artist needs to cancel we reserve the right to amend the line up without notice and no refunds will be due.