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Letters Live at Royal Albert Hall

On the week Mark Zuckerberg announced his plan for a metaverse, attending the deliciously analog Letters Live at Royal Albert Hall was like balm to the soul. Letters Live, inspired by the best-selling book series Letters of Note, is a live, bi-annual (more or less) event in which famous actors read letters dealing with anything from a customer complaint to Virgin Airlines (which made it all the way to Richard Branson for its hilarity), a sublime love letter, to a heart-wrenching post-humous letter written by a 19 year-old soldier killed in Afghanistan and many more. A packed Royal Albert Hall (with an encouraging number of 20yr olds!) was treated to readings by Benedict Cumberbatch, Gillian Anderson, Toby Jones, Matt Lucas and many more, interspersed by music performances. Exquisite!

While you wait for the next one, visit the Letters Live archive.

More on the Letter of Note series:

Speeches of Note compiled by Shaun Usher follows on from his hugely successful Letters of Note (2013), Lists of Note (2014) and More Letters of Note (2017). As well as the usual suspects, Queen Elizabeth II, Nelson Mandela, Albert Einstein there are some left field entries here such as Kermit the Frog, Nick Cave, Ursula Le Guin and (a pre-princess) Meghan Markle. It also contains some speeches never delivered, like President Nixon’s announcement should Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong get stuck on the moon. These really are the perfect gift books, beautifully executed and perfect for browsing.

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