Past event

Letters Live in association with Cunard

Date:
22 January 2026

Letters Live partnered with Cunard on a very special show on Thursday 22nd January 2026, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre. Proceeds from ticket sales were donated to The King’s Trust, supporting young people to transform their futures.

 

This special collaboration celebrated the enduring art of letter writing, inspired by the calmness of sea travel and the human need to reflect, to write, and to stay connected.

 

Cunard’s ships have welcomed some of the world’s greatest writers, thinkers, and artists, from Noël Coward and Elizabeth Taylor to David Bowie, each finding inspiration in the rhythm of the ocean. Rooted in Cunard’s literary heritage, this partnership celebrates a tradition that has inspired travellers for over 185 years.

 

In partnership with Letters Live, the evening revived this creative legacy, with distinguished performers bringing extraordinary letters, written at sea and beyond, to life, capturing the emotion, wit, and humanity of correspondence across time and how it continues to connect people across distance and generations.

Running Order

(Click dates to expand/collapse)

Thursday 22nd January 2026
ACT ONE

 

Meera Syal

Mrs. Slob of 1961

A viewer to Shaw Taylor

 

Rob Rinder

Nothin’ down here you ain’t ate

Adrian Spindrift-Smith to David Creeper

 

Harriet Walter

I am an ocean flyer

Beryl Markham to the Press

 

Benedict Cumberbatch

Your humble client

A customer to their bank

 

Damian Lewis

We’re terrible animals

Bob Andenmatten to Berkshire Eagle

 

James Corden

What you inherited WAS the real thing

A disgruntled customer to the Coca-Cola Company

 

Sharon Small

Thou Eunuch of Language

Robert Burns to a critic

 

Dominic West

Songs without words

Felix Mendelssohn to Marc-André Souchay

 

Harriet Walter

The rougher it is the better I like it

Edna St. Vincent Millay to her family

 

Toby Jones

This was no truss sabotage

Fred Allen to Joe Kelly

 

Louise Brealey

What will happen when it’s all over, do you think?

Vita Sackville-West Virginia Woolf

 

ACT TWO

 

Damian Lewis

I have Never as Yett Wronged any English or Dutch

Henry Every to All commanders

 

Sharon Small

We are all terribly sorry

Phyllida Law to her mother-in-law

 

Rob Rinder

I’m terribly in love with you

James Schuyler to John Button

 

Harriet Walter

I wish man were less mad

Martha Gellhorn to Allen Grover

 

James Corden

Stupidity

Name withheld to Superior Insurance

 

Cpt. Aseem Hashmi

Please consider my own position

King George VI to Winston Churchill

 

Toby Jones

A mutual friend has given me your name

Rev Citarella to Stephen

 

Meera Syal

A thousand times no!

Manuela Sáenz to James Thorne

 

Rob Rinder & Benedict Cumberbatch

You Babylonian scullion

Mehmed IV to Zaporozhian Cossacks

 

Dominic West

We are in a desperate state

Sir Robert Falcoln Scott to Sir JM Barrie

 

Louise Brealey

I demand answers!

Thatcher Jensen to he lady selling seashells

 

Benedict Cumberbatch

My mind leaped back to you

Thomas Wolfe to Aline Bernstein

 

 

MUSIC

 

Bea and her Business

Born to Be Alive

 

Laura Mvula

Father, Father

Stars (Nina Simone Cover)

 

CREDITS
Fred Allen to Joe Kelly, ‘This was no truss sabotage’, 25th August 1939. © the Estate of Fred Allen; Bob Andenmatten to The Berkshire Eagle, ‘We’re terrible animals’, November 2024. © Robert A. Andenmatten; Martha Gellhorn to Allen Grover, ‘I wish man were less mad’, 27th May 1944. © Sandy Matthews; Thatcher Jensen to The lady selling seashells, ‘I demand answers!’, August 2017. © Thatcher Jensen; Phyllida Law to her mother-in-law, ‘We are all terribly sorry’. © Phyllida Law; Beryl Markham to the Press, ‘I am an ocean flyer’, September 1936, © The Estate of Beryl Markham; Edna St. Vincent Millay to her family, from: Into the World’s Great Heart: Selected Letters of Edna St. Vincent Millay, edited by Timothy F. Jackson (Yale University Press, 2023). Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Holly Peppe, Literary Executor, The Edna St. Vincent Millay Society, www.millay.org.; Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf, ‘What will happen when it’s all over, do you think?’, 8th February 1926. © the Estate of Vita Sackville-West; James Schuyler to John Button, ‘I’m terribly in love with you’, Spring 1956. Published in Just the Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991 edited by William Corbett. Copyright © 2004 by William Corbett and the Estate of James Schuyler. Revised edition copyright (2) 2020 by the Estate of William Corbett and the Estate of James Schuyler. Used by permission of turtle Press. All rights reserved.; Frustrated Customer to The Bank, ‘Your Humble Client’, 7 January 1999. © Peter Wear; Thomas Wolfe to Aline Bernstein, ‘My mind leaped back to you’, 27th August 1928. From MY OTHER LONELINESS: LETTERS OF THOMAS WOLFE AND ALINE BERNSTEIN edited by Suzanne Stutman, with a foreword by Richard S. Kennedy. Copyright © 1983 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher.