Realisation 2025

Martin Shaw
Speaker

Martin Shaw is a writer, mythographer and storyteller. Author of seventeen books, Dr Shaw is the director of the Westcountry School of Myth and founder of the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life courses at Stanford University. His book Bardskull was described as “rich and transgressive” by Erica Wagner in The Sunday Times and was Book of the Day in The Guardian. A hugely respected oral storyteller, Shaw has toured internationally numerous times, and led symposiums at both Oxford and Cambridge University. Robert Bly described him as “a true master, one of the very greatest storytellers we have.” His more recent work is what he speaks of as developing “Christian mythopoetics”—a reminder of the depth and mysticism latent in this middle-eastern mystery religion.

Jonathan Ainscough
Realisation Player

Jonathan Ainscough is an actor, singer, multi-instrumentalist, director, writer, musical director and arranger. Alongside his work has an improviser with Showstopper and Austentatious, he has worked for the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera, Opera North, the Royal Exchange Theatre and the Leeds Playhouse, as well as the award-winning charity Streetwise Opera, leading music and drama workshops with people experiencing homelessness. Twitter: @JAinscough85

Chris Ash
Realisation Player

Chris is a composer, workshop leader, musical director, sound designer, and multi-instrumentalist. A founding member of Showstopper! and An Improbable Musical, he is sometimes found teaching Musical Theatre Writing at Goldsmiths or Royal Central School of Speech & Drama, or coaching Musical Theatre Improvisation at the Royal Academy of Music. As a composer, Chris created “Wasted” with Carl Miller; a “Live Rockumentary” about the Brontë siblings. Collaborating with digital media company Megaverse, Chris has created music & sound for Virtual Reality, and smartphone gameplay.

Chris has led creative workshops for International School students around the world, including on the “Unseen Stories” of asylum-seekers in Hong Kong, and on “Bayanihan” in Manila (ISTA). He has been a guest musical director for many of the London 50-hour Improvathons, and at festivals in Oslo, Rome, Edmonton, Hamburg, Canmore, Copenhagen, Birmingham, and beyond.

Chris Ash and Susan Harrison will be improvising a mini musical, exploring whichever themes rise to the surface during the festival. Using your suggestions they will conjure up a slice of spontaneous entertainment to delight and inspire.

Susan Harrison
Realisation Player

Susan is a member of Showstopper! The Improvised Musical. She has also improvised with Mischief Movie Night, Austentatious and her own company These Folk. She teaches improvisation for Hoopla & The Bridge and is passionate about creating a playful & supportive environment. As an actress she’s worked with numerous companies including; CBBC, The National Theatre & Radio 4.

Susan Harrison and Chris Ash will be improvising a mini musical, exploring whichever themes rise to the surface during the festival. Using your suggestions they will conjure up a slice of spontaneous entertainment to delight and inspire.

Pippa Evans
Realisation Player & Programme Co-ordinator

Pippa Evans is an award winning improviser, musical comedian and author of Improv Your Life: An Improviser’s Guide To Embracing Whatever Life Throws At You. In 2013 she and Sanderson Jones started Sunday Assembly, the church for people who don’t believe in God which became a global phenomenon. Though no longer involved in the Sunday Assembly project, Pippa finds herself drawn to the Venn Diagram of secular spirituality, improvisation and humour. How can we be fully ourselves in relation to others? Can we do serious work without taking ourselves too seriously?

Teaching improvisation has taken Pippa everywhere from Drama Schools to boardrooms, working with everyone from footballers to NHS workers. Pippa has been collaborating with Perspectiva since its early iterations and is excited to return to the Realisation Festival for 2024.

www.pippaevans.com

Nick Ashley-Cooper
Our Host

Nick Shaftesbury graduated from the London Business School with a Masters in Business Administration in 2008. After an early career as a DJ and music promoter in New York City, he returned to the UK in 2005 and has since overseen the restoration of his family home, St Giles House. The project has won several national awards, including the 2015 Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Award for Building Conservation and the Historic England Angel Award, Best Rescue of a Historic Building or Site. The work has been documented in a book entitled, ‘The Rebirth of an English Country House’, which he co-wrote with Tim Knox, the current Director of the Royal Collection. He is the first Shaftesbury for 50 years to live in St Giles House, alongside his wife Dinah and their three children.

Ed Haddon
Festival Coordinator

Ed is a coach who specialises in working with entrepreneurs and those looking for a more autonomous meaningful life. He works with purpose led leaders to develop their own models of success in business and life. He is particularly interested in redirecting focus from shareholders to a broader set of beneficiaries. He uses coaching to generate honest conversations and change, working at the intersection of psychology and business. He is the author of the upcoming book The Modern Maverick, which helps readers unlock their potential for the benefit of all those around them and society as a whole. He holds degrees in Psychology from Oxford University and in Business from Harvard University and a Diploma in Performance Coaching from The Coaching Academy.

Jonathan Rowson
Director of Perspectiva

Jonathan Rowson is a writer, philosopher and chess Grandmaster who was British Chess Champion from 2004-2006. HE holds degrees from Oxford, Bristol, and Harvard universities, was former director of the Social Brain Center at the RSA and an Open Society Fellow. He is co-founder and director of Perspectiva, a research institute that examines the relationship between complex global challenges and the inner lives of human beings. His latest book is The Moves that Matter – A Chess Grandmaster on the Game of Life.

Mark Vernon
Programme Co-ordinator and Facilitator

Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist. He contributes to and presents programmes on the radio, as well as writing for the national and religious press, and online publications. He also podcasts, in particular The Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues with Rupert Sheldrake, gives talks and leads workshops. He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and other degrees in physics and in theology, having studied at Durham, Oxford and Warwick universities. He is the author of several books, including his latest, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. He used to be an Anglican priest and lives in London, UK. For more information see www.markvernon.com.