Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio. He co-hosts two podcasts, “The Rest Is Politics US” and “Open Book,” and has authored six books, including The Little Book of Bitcoin. Prior to SkyBridge, he co-founded Oscar Capital, and worked at Goldman Sachs. Scaramucci was ranked #47 in Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Influencers in Crypto (2022). He served on Donald Trump’s Presidential Transition Team and briefly as White House Communications Director. He holds a BA in Economics from Tufts University and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Mary Beard is the most acclaimed classicist working today. She is the Professor Emerita of Classics at Cambridge and is the Classics editor of the TLS. She is also the co-host, with Charlotte Higgins, of the podcast Instant Classics. Her previous books include the bestselling, Wolfson Prize-winning Pompeii as well as Confronting the Classics, SPQR, Women & Power and Emperor of Rome. Her work has been published in over 35 languages.

Alan Titchmarsh CBE, DL, VMH has been President of the National Garden Scheme since 2025. He is a gardener, writer, novelist, poet, concert presenter and broadcaster best known for programmes such as Ground Force, Gardeners’ World, Love Your Garden and The Chelsea Flower Show. He has also presented the BBC Proms and hosts the Saturday afternoon show on Classic FM. His own chat show The Alan Titchmarsh Show ran for eight years on ITV and he currently presents Love Your Weekend on Sunday mornings and Alan Titchmarsh’s Gardening Club. Alan has written more than fifty gardening books, three volumes of autobiography, several books on royalty including The Queen’s Houses and twelve novels, ten of which have made the Sunday Times Best-seller list. His latest books are Chatsworth: The Gardens and the People Who Made Them and The Gardener’s Almanac. Alan was made MBE in the Millennium New Year Honours List and CBE in the New Year Honours list 2025. He is a retired Deputy Lieutenant of Hampshire and was Chancellor of the University of Winchester from 2016-2021. From 2008-9 he was High Sheriff of the Isle of Wight. In 2004 he was awarded the Victoria Medal of Honour, one of the Royal Horticultural Society’s two most prestigious awards.

Al Murray is one of the most successful comics in the UK with his alter-ego The Pub Landlord and has had four previous bestselling books, The Pub Landlord's Book of British Common Sense, The Pub Landlord Says Think Yourself British, Great British Pub Quiz Book and Watching War Films with my Dad. His passion for military history and the Second World War in particular has always run parallel with his comedy and was brought to the fore with several acclaimed and award-winning television shows and the huge success of his podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk which he hosts with fellow bestselling military author James Holland.

James Naughtie is a radio and news presenter for the BBC. From 1994 until 2015 he was one of the main presenters of Radio 4's Today programme. In 2016 he retired from regular presenting duties on Today as is now its Special Correspondent and Books Editor, contributing a book review to the Saturday morning editions of Today. In his 21-plus years on Today, Naughtie anchored every BBC Radio UK election results programme since 1997 and worked on every US presidential election since 1988. Naughtie chaired the judges of the inaugural 2010 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in March 2017. Naughtie has written a number of books on subjects such as politics, music and history.

Afua Hirsch is an award-winning journalist and author, known for her work on culture, identity and social justice. She presents flagship BBC documentary Africa Rising, the global series Enslaved with Samuel L Jackson, and the podcast Legacy, which explores the contemporary legacy of historical figures, and is founder of her own production company Born in Me Productions. She is the author of Brit(ish)(2018), Equal To Everything (2019) and Decolonising My Body (2023). A journalist for more than twenty years, she is a former Guardian correspondent, Associate Editor at Vogue, and professor of journalism at the University of Southern California.

Festival favourite Antony Beevor returns to Chalke to unravel one of history’s most beguiling figures. How did an obscure Siberian peasant come to wield such extraordinary influence at the heart of imperial Russia? Exploring Rasputin’s role in the final years of the Romanov dynasty, Beevor cuts through scandal, myth and rumour to reveal how belief, fear and reputation helped undermine the world’s greatest autocracy. Was Rasputin truly the dark power behind the throne, or does his story reveal something deeper about the fragility of authority in times of crisis? A gripping exploration of personality, power and the dangerous force of legend.

Saul David is a best-selling historian and broadcaster. His recent books include Operation Thunderbolt (turned into the movie Entebbe), SBS: Silent Warriors, Devil Dogs and Sky Warriors: British Airborne Forces in the Second World War. He co-hosts the Battleground podcast with Patrick Bishop. Saul's lates book is Tunisgrad: Victory in Africa.

Alice Loxton is a history presenter and author with over three million followers on social media (@history_alice), where she educates on British history, heritage and art. Her latest book, “Eighteen: A History of Britain in 18 Young Lives”, was a Sunday Times bestseller and Blackwell’s Book of the Year 2024. She has worked with many organisations to bring history to new audiences, including 10 Downing Street, The National Trust, The Royal Academy, English Heritage, The National Gallery, Tate, The King’s Foundation, BBC, ITV, and Microsoft. She writes about history for publications such as The Times, Telegraph and Spectator. Alice is an ambassador for the National Trust, a mentor for The King’s Foundation 35 Under 35 Network, and a patron of The British Pilgrimage Trust.

Anne Applebaum is a historian and journalist. She is a staff writer for the Atlantic as well as a Senior Fellow at the Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of several history books, including Gulag: A History, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction; Iron Curtain, Red Famine and the bestselling Twilight of Democracy. Anne has been writing about Eastern Europe and Russia since 1989, when she covered the collapse of communism in Poland for the Economist magazine. She has also covered US, UK and European politics for a wide range of American and British publications. She is a former Washington Post columnist and a former deputy editor of the Spectator magazine.

Gordon Corera is a journalist and writer on intelligence and security issues. Since 2004 he has been a Security Correspondent for BBC News where he covers terrorism, cyber security, the work of intelligence agencies and other national security issues for the BBC. He co-hosts The Rest is Classified podcast with former CIA analyst and spy novelist, David McCloskey.

James Holland is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning historian, writer, and broadcaster. The author of a number of best-selling histories he has presented - and written - a large number of television programmes and series. He has a weekly Second World War podcast, We Have of Making You Talk, with Al Murray, and is the Founder and Creative Director of the Chalke History Festival. He is a research fellow at St Andrew's University.