Jeremy Irons. The Academy Award-winning star of The Lion King, Reversal of Fortune and Brideshead Revisited will speak on Wednesday, 26th October at 8pm. Fresh from his role as Alfred in Batman vs Superman, he is also a goodwill ambassador for the UN.
Stephen Hawking, Laura Trott and Jeremy Irons are just some of the big names that will appear at the Oxford Union this term, among an array of politicians, entertainers and other public figures. But amidst the furore of Freshers’ Week and impending essay crises, are you short of time to choose which talks to queue for, and which to skip? If so, fear not; Cherwell has chosen its top six picks out of this term’s Union speakers. Click on the images below to find out more.
Visiting on Wednesday 5th October at 7pm, George Takei is perhaps best-known as the original Hikaru Sulu of Star Trek. He is a Hollywood Hall of Fame inductee, and won the 2012 LGBT Humanist Award for his work promoting LGBTQIA+ and human rights.
Jeremy Irons. The Academy Award-winning star of The Lion King, Reversal of Fortune and Brideshead Revisited will speak on Wednesday, 26th October at 8pm. Fresh from his role as Alfred in Batman vs Superman, he is also a goodwill ambassador for the UN.
The first female Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova will be hosted at the Union on Thursday, 3rd November at 5pm. She is also the first Eastern-European to govern the organisation, and has campaigned for many years for gender equality and improved education globally.
Aged 21, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with ALS, and given two years to live. More than fifty years on, he is Director of Research at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, most famous for his work with Roger Penrose on Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. He will be speaking on Monday 18 January at 5pm.
With ten Olympic Gold medals between them, Laura Trott and Jason Kenny are two of Great Britain’s most successful sportspeople. Trott is the most decorated female Olympian in British history, while Kenny is the joint holder of the highest number of Olympic Golds for a British athlete. They will be visiting the Union on Tuesday 15th November at 5pm.
Speaking on Wednesday 23rd November at 8pm, Shami Chakrabarti is the former Director of Liberty, Labour peer and chair of the 2016 inquiry into antisemitism in the Labour Party. She was also a member of the Leveson inquiry.
