SIMON CALLOW (Performer)
Simon Callow was born in 1949 in London. He lived in Africa for three years, studied at the London Oratory School on his return, and subsequently spent a year at Queen's University Belfast, from which he ran away to become an actor. After three years training at the Drama Centre, he made his debut at the Edinburgh Festival in 1973, playing the front end of a horse in Büchner's Woyzeck. In 1979, he created the part of Mozart in the first production of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus and played the title role in Goethe's Faust, all seven hours of it. He has appeared extensively with the RSC, the National Theatre (most recently in Twelfth Night as Sir Toby Belch), at the Royal Court, in the West End and all over the country. Over the years, he has done a number of one-man plays including: The Importance of Being Oscar, The Mystery of Charles Dickens and Being Shakespeare (UK tour and West End, 2010/11); Tuesday at Tesco's in Edinburgh; and a tour of two Dickens one-man plays, Dr Marigold and Mr Chops. His one-man version of A Christmas Carol last Christmas was hugely successful. His films include: Amadeus, A Room With a View, Shakespeare in Love, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Phantom of the Opera, Chemical Wedding, 3 x 20 (just seen at the Berlin Festival) and Acts of Godfrey, in which he plays God in rhyming couplets, released later this year. He has worked in television for over 30 years; in the early 1980s, he played Tom Chance opposite Brenda Blethyn in the sitcom Chance in a Million, which has become a bit of a cult. He has directed over 30 shows, including: Carmen Jones and the West End and Broadway productions of Shirley Valentine, and Single Spies at the National Theatre, as well many operas, most recently The Magic Flute at Holland Park. His only film as a director is The Ballad of the Sad Café, starring Vanessa Redgrave and Rod Steiger. He has written and presented two documentaries for television: Callow's Laughton and Orson Welles Over Europe.

He has written 16 books, including a memoir, Love Is Where It Falls; biographies of Charles Laughton and Orson Welles (two volumes so far, one to come); and a number of books about the theatre, starting with Being an Actor and continuing with his latest book, published in 2010, My Life in Pieces, which last year won the coveted Sheridan Morley Award. A biography of Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World, appeared on 7 February 2012, Dickens's 200th birthday.

He has been very closely involved in music, working with orchestras (LPO, LSO, LMP, Philharmonia, Glyndebourne) and with instrumentalists and singers (Carole Farley, Steven Isserlis, Steven Hough). He has recorded works by Schönberg, Rawsthorne and Hallgrímsson, and been involved in the premieres of pieces by Jonathan Dove, Roxanna Panufnik and Per Nørgård. His dancing has been confined to a production of The Soldier's Tale, in which he played the Devil; the violin was played by Pinchas Zukerman.

JONATHAN BATE (Writer)
Jonathan Bate studied at Cambridge and Harvard universities. Well known as a biographer, critic, broadcaster and scholar, he is provost of Worcester College and professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He has wide-ranging research interests in Shakespeare and Renaissance literature, Romanticism, biography and life-writing, eco-criticism, contemporary poetry and theatre history. He is a fellow of both the British Academy and the Royal Society of Literature, as well as an honorary fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. Before moving to Oxford in 2011, he was a fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge; then King Alfred professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool; and then professor of Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature at the University of Warwick. He is on the board of the Royal Shakespeare Company; broadcasts regularly for the BBC; writes for The Guardian, The Times, TLS and The Sunday Telegraph; and has held visiting posts at Yale and UCLA. In 2006, he was awarded a CBE in the Queen's 80th birthday honours for his services to higher education. He is currently vice-president (leading the humanities) of the British Academy. He is consultant curator for the British Museum's major Shakespeare exhibition for the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

TOM CAIRNS (Director)
Theatre includes: All About My Mother and Cloud Nine (Old Vic Theatre); Aristocrats and The Odyssey (Royal National Theatre); Phaedra (Donmar Warehouse); A Christmas Carol (Arts Theatre); Aunt Dan and Lemon (Almeida Theatre); The Music Teacher (New York); Uncle Vanya (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield); A Delicate Balance (Nottingham Playhouse); The Lady From the Sea (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow); Miss Julie (Greenwich). Opera includes: The Tempest (Olivier Award; Royal Opera House/Opera du Rhin, Strasbourg/Royal Opera, Copenhagen); La Voix Humaine (Royal Opera House, Covent Garden); The Second Mrs Kong (Glyndebourne Festival Opera); Un Ballo in Maschera (Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich); Werther and Jenůfa (Opera North); La Bohème (Staatsoper, Stuttgart); King Priam (ENO/Flanders Opera/Opera North); Don Giovanni (Scottish Opera). Future work includes The Makropulos Case for the Edinburgh International Festival 2012 and Opera North. Film and television work includes: Marie and Bruce (feature film); Trouble in Tahiti (BBC - Grammy nomination/Best Film Vienna Festival); Amongst Women (BBC - BAFTA Nomination, Best TV Series, Banff); La Voix Humaine (Channel 4); Big Day (BBC); Alistair Fish (BBC).

BRUNO POET (Lighting Designer)
Theatre credits include: Travelling Light, Frankenstein, London Road, Season's Greetings, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, The Enchantment and Aristocrats (National Theatre); Cause Célèbre, All About My Mother (Old Vic); South Downs/The Browning Version (Chichester Festival Theatre); Coram Boy (Bristol Old Vic); The Human Comedy, A Prayer for My Daughter and Tobias and the Angel (Young Vic); Breakfast at Tiffany's (Theatre Royal Haymarket); Romeo and Juliet (Royal Shakespeare Company); Phaedra (Donmar Warehouse); Dumb Show (Royal Court); Ubu the King (Dundee/Tron/ Barbican); A Midsummer Night's Dream (Dundee Rep); The Importance of Being Earnest (Oxford Playhouse); The Lemon Princess (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Volpone and Major Barbara (Manchester Royal Exchange); King Lear (English Touring Theatre/Old Vic); French Without Tears, Twelfth Night, Love's Labour's Lost, The Cherry Orchard and Don Juan (ETT); Don Juan (Lyric Hammersmith); The Birthday Party (Sheffield); Midnight's Children (RSC/Barbican/New York/UK tour); Antarctica and Tess (West End). Opera and dance credits include: The Magic Flute (Oviedo); Rinaldo (Chicago); Macbeth (Opéra National du Rhin/Monte Carlo); Cavalleria Rusticana and I Pagliacci (Royal Danish Theatre); Al gran sole carico d'Amore (Berlin/Salzburg); L'arbore di Diana, La clemenza di Tito (Barcelona); Rusalka (Sydney); I puritani (De Nederlandse Opera/Grand Théâtre de Genève co-production/Greek National Opera); as well as 15 consecutive seasons for Garsington Opera and productions for the Royal Opera House, Linbury, Opera North, Rambert Dance Company, Scottish Opera and English National Opera. Concert lighting includes: Jónsi's recent world tour. Awards and nominations include: winner of the Knight of Illumination Award and nomination for Whatsonstage Award for Frankenstein; winner of the Australian Green Room Award and nomination for the Helpmann Award for Rusalka at the Sydney Opera House.

BEN AND MAX RINGHAM (Music and Sound Design)
Theatre: She Stoops to Conquer (National Theatre); A Christmas Carol (Arts Theatre); The Ladykillers (Gielgud Theatre); Painkiller (Lyric, Belfast); My City (Almeida); American Trade (RSC); Little Eagles (RSC); Remembrance Day (Royal Court); Racing Demon (Sheffield Crucible); Hamlet (Sheffield Crucible); The Electric Hotel (Fuel Theatre); Les Parents Terribles (Donmar at Trafalgar Studios); Salomé (Headlong); Polar Bears (Donmar Warehouse); The Little Dog Laughed (Garrick); Three Days of Rain (Apollo, West End); The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Vaudeville); An Enemy of the People (Sheffield Crucible); Really Old, Like Forty Five (National Theatre); The Pride (Royal Court); The Author (Royal Court); Phaedra (Donmar Warehouse); Piaf (Donmar, also Vaudeville/Buenos Aires); Branded (Old Vic Theatre); All About My Mother (Old Vic Theatre); Contains Violence (Lyric Hammersmith); The Lover/The Collection (Comedy); The Caretaker (Sheffield Crucible, also Tricycle, tour); Amato Saltone, What If...?, Tropicana, Dance Bear Dance, The Ballad of Bobby Francois (Shunt); The Pigeon (BAC); Henry IV parts I and II (National Theatre). Ben and Max were nominated for a Best Sound Design Olivier for Piaf and as part of the creative team accepted a Best Overall Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre Olivier Award for The Pride. Ben and Max are associate artists with the Shunt collective and two thirds of the band Superthriller.

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