Carole Petipher is an experienced guide and lecturer on combined history and art tours in France with 20 years experience.   Having lived and worked on a number of bespoke river vessels and converted barges there she has used them as a platform from which to research her lectures.   She uses art in all its guises to explore the characters who shaped France and likes to delve behind the scenes to discover hidden truths.

How was Napoleon such an excellent self promoter?   What was it that drove him?   What on the other hand drove his wife?   And what was it that made Napoleon and Josephine one of the most followed couples in history?   These questions can be answered giving a true insight into their character in our exploration of the collections at the Chateau de Malmaison, their private retreat and now a National Museum.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Writer and historian Simon Inglis specialises in the architecture and heritage of sport and recreation.   From 2004-22 he edited the Played in Britain series for English Heritage and currently acts as an Ambassdor for the Historic Pools of Britain.   Although sport and recreation might seem an unlikely subject for The Arts Society, non-sporty types need have no fear.   Simon’s themes are architecture, design, heritage and popular culture.   One highpoint in his work for English Heritage was the listing of a 1970s skatepark in Essex, a world first that made the 10 o'clock news.

London’s great drivers have always been finance and culture.   But while the arts are celebrated in the capital, physical culture is often overlooked.   In this lecture, Simon traces London’s sporting culture back to the 12th century, taking in manuscripts in the British Library, records of jousting at the College of Arms, and the obscure game of Pall Mall, from which the current thoroughfare takes its name.   Much of this story concerns the battle for open space, an issue for the Finsbury Archers of the 17th century no less than campaigners for playing fields in the 20th century East End slums.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Pip Burley began his musical career playing Rock'n'Roll in the 60s and 70s as well as working with the big bands - including Sydney Lipton, Joe Loss and Ken Mackintosh.   He went on to compose and record music for commercials, theatre, film and television and, in 1990, won an Ivor Novello Award for Best Television Theme music for The Darling Buds of May - a TV series he also produced (discovering Catherine Zeta-Jones in the process).   Other television successes include the multi-award winning series A Touch of Frost, the most watched police series of all time, created for and starring David Jason. As a sideline he also managed to start and run an advertising agency!   More recently,he has devised a series of six talks entitled 'The Golden Age of Song', featuring the lives and music of six great composers of popular song, and today we will hear of one of the greatest of these. 

Israel Beilin (later to become Irving Berlin) was born in Russia in abject poverty three years later than Kern, in 1888.   He arrived in America in 1893, at the age of five speaking no English.   Berlin became a huge American patriot and by the time he died at the age of 101 he had written thousands of beautiful, often witty, songs, inspiring the much younger George Gershwin to describe him as ‘the greatest songwriter who ever lived’.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Sandy Burnett is one of the UK’s most versatile music commentators, enjoying a career that combines broadcasting, performing and lecturing.   After studying at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and working as music director for the RSC, National Theatre and in London’s West End, Sandy spent a decade as one of the core team of presenters on BBC Radio 3. 

The 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's death in March 1827 makes it a great time to reassess the legacy of this great composer.   Born into a family of court musicians in Bonn, Beethoven became one of the greatest and most disruptive figures in the history of classical music; by the time he died in Vienna he had completely transformed music's cultural landscape.   This lecture reflects on this brilliant, cantankerous, visionary and astonishingly original composer, and traces how he grew from Classical beginnings to become a true Romantic artist, or as he preferred to describe himself, a “poet in sound.”

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Tyler Butterworth grew up in a theatrical family and spent twenty five years as an actor working extensively in film, television, theatre and radio.   He then worked as a development producer in television documentaries.   Now, he produces walking audio guides to cities across Europe for private clients.

It’s said in our theatrical history that there was a Golden Age of British Comedy.   It ran from the 1970’s to the 1980’s and occurred as we started to drift away from theatres and radios, and found ourselves living through a wonderfully rich period of television comedy.   Some say this period has never been bettered.

In this unashamedly affectionate and entertaining lecture, and sharing his personal and family connection with this world, Tyler will go back and revisit those wonderful comedy programmes and the people who were in them.   He will unravel the formula for TV comedy success, and how it made us laugh like we did.   And he will look at how the world of Variety was kept alive by the comedians and the double acts who managed to leap successfully from the stage into our televisions.  

This is a lecture that will bring back many fond memories as we revisit a key part of our country’s theatrical heritage.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Dr Antonia Gatward Cevizli is an independent art historian specialising in both Italian Renaissance art and Ottoman art.   She gained her PhD from the University of Warwick.   Her publications focus on cultural and diplomatic exchange between the Italian city-states and the Ottomans.   Antonia has lectured for a number of institutions including Sabancı University, Istanbul; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; the National Gallery; the V&A Academy and The Courtauld summer school.

Dramatic struggles, speaking portraits, ecstatic nuns and dynamic fountains are among the works discussed in this lecture.   We will survey Bernini’s career as a sculptor from his beginnings as a child prodigy to his final years managing a prolific workshop.   We look at the important role played by his patrons and champions, his techniques and his subject matter. 

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Amina Wright has three decades of experience as a curator of historic art collections and exhibitions. She has produced several major exhibitions on eighteenth-century British Art and Old Masters and published and lectured widely in these areas.   As Senior Curator at the Holburne Museum in Bath she was a leading member of the team that delivered the museum’s highly successful 2011 redevelopment. 

Although Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) often complained about the tedium of painting one portrait after another, his delight in depicting animals radiates from his work.   In landscapes, portraits and sketches, Gainsborough’s animals are beautifully and affectionately observed and overflowing with character and meaning. 

Gainsborough lived and worked at a time when animals were far more visible in town and country and when the idea of dogs and cats as pets - friends and companions rather than mere servants - was emerging.   At the same time, scientists and landowners were fascinated by the possibilities of breeding, developing new, more efficient cattle and horses and a different dog for every need.   As Ellis Waterhouse observed: “the number of dogs which diversify his human portraits is surprisingly large and many of them are more memorable than their masters.” 

In this lecture we will meet some of those memorable dogs, as well as cats, horses, and even donkeys, cows and pigs. 

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Roger Butler is a landscape architect and an experienced writer, photographer and lecturer.   He has a particular interest in the unique history, architecture and traditions of our canal network and worked on some of the UK’s major canal restoration projects.   He has also acted as a consultant to bodies such as Waterways Ireland, Natural England and the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.   He regularly contributes to waterway and heritage magazines and writes and provides images for a range of countryside and outdoor titles.

This lecture provides a colourful introduction to the secret world of our 2000-mile inland waterway network and looks at all aspects of their exceptional artistic, architectural and engineering vernacular.   Features range from sweeping aqueducts to tiny bollards; from colourful historic narrowboats to 'Roses and Castles' artwork; from grand World Heritage Sites to quirky listed buildings.

A well-known architectural historian once described our canals as a 'poor man's art gallery'. 

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Alan Read has a masters and first-class honours degree in History of Art from Birkbeck College, University of London.   He is a gallery guide at Tate Britain and regularly lectures at both London Tates.   For twenty years he was a gallery guide and lecturer at the National Portrait Gallery and the Dulwich Picture Gallery. He also works as a London Blue Badge Guide.

How can you best understand one of the most prolific, complex and influential painters of the 20th century?  By taking just ten of Picasso’s paintings this lecture will examine his life and attempt to explain the evolution of his painting styles through a career that spanned more than seventy years.   Looking at the genesis of each work, examining its biographical meaning, its moment in history and its significance in the canon of modern art this will reveal the truth behind this most enigmatic and powerful artist. 

Included in the ten will be ‘The Three Dancers’ (1925), the subject of a major exhibition at Tate Modern from September 2025 to Spring 2026.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Dr Paul Roberts OBE is Research Keeper in the Department of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford University.   Paul has been a lecturer with the Arts Society/NADFAS for over twenty years, has travelled extensively to societies across the UK, and has also lectured on numerous cruises in and around the Mediterranean.

Ancient Egypt has always been a source of fascination to those who have visited it – or conquered it.   The grandeur of its monuments the perceptible depth of its history and richness – and the ‘otherness’ of its culture have ensures that again and again ancient Egypt has inspired and enhanced popular culture. “Egyptomania” is the interest in and passion for Egyptian culture - the desire to explore it, bring elements of it physically away and possess them.   Then there is also the application of Egyptian style and influence to everyday areas of life, from architecture and sculpture, to furniture, ornaments, jewellery and dress, and also to films, television and literature.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

A passionate arts educator, lecturer, and guide, based in London and Italy, Charlie Hall is director of the highly regarded John Hall Venice Course, (est. 1965).   He has been tour lecturer and leader for Kirker Holidays since 2013, of independent tours in Italy and designer and host of a series of art talks and events for the Soho House group of private member’s clubs.  

Three giants of the Italian Renaissance who were involved in fierce competition with each other, Leonardo, the master, Michelangelo the brooding upstart genius, and Raphael, the artist who carefully crafted his stellar career in the shadows, to emerge as a bright light that was tragically extinguished by an early death just as he began to be recognised as an artist in his own right.   "Everything that Raphael had, he took from me", is what Michelangelo remarked, as Pope Julius II pitted them against each other in the Vatican.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Dr Graham Jones started his professional life as a musician in the British Army and over a glittering career spanning nearly forty years he retired as the Senior Director of Music, Household Division and Director of Music, Coldstream Guards a position unequalled throughout military music in Great Britain.

Having retired, at the start of 2012, from military service Graham is enjoying a second career as a guest conductor, adjudicator, guest speaker, lecturer, clinician, recording consultant and educator. He is also the Artist Director of London International Band Week, music consultant to Henley Music Festival, resident conductor of the British Imperial Orchestra, visiting conductor in residence at Troy University, Alabama, USA and guest lecturer on cruise ships.

The UK provides some of the biggest Ceremonial Events in the world and arguably the best in the world but why is that?   How do the military prepare for major events such as State Opening of Parliament, State Visits, National day of Remembrance, Royal Weddings or even a State Funeral?

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.

Dr Alison Barker taught History and Art History at further and higher education for over twenty years and currently works at the University of Essex.   She speaks widely to diverse groups on many historical and art historical topics, and has led guided tours at the British Museum and the National Gallery.

Through the four aspects of Feasts, Frivolity, Fantasy and Faith, this lecture explores how the Tudors celebrated Christmas.   We look at the dynasty from its first monarch, Henry VII, through to its last, Elizabeth I, using art from the period to illustrate the rich culture of the time.   The era of five hundred years ago will be brought to life through recipes, types of dancing and music, drama and devotion to recreate the evocative atmosphere of a Tudor Christmas.

Note: This event will commence at 10:45 with announcements.   The lecture will start at 11:00.