The Longplayer Conversation 2026
THE LONGPLAYER CONVERSATION 2026:
Selma Dabbagh and Alexei Sayle
At Swedenborg Hall
9th March 2026, 7pm
Tickets: £10 – Ticket Source
The Longplayer Conversation invites leading cultural and scientific voices to conduct a public discussion inspired by the work’s themes and resonances. This year, the British-Palestinian writer and lawyer Selma Dabbagh will be in conversation with the actor, author and comedian Alexei Sayle.
They will discuss narratives, literature, political fault lines and a subject close to their hearts – the development of an international rules-based order with Palestine at the centre – in the context of how Longplayer’s expression of deep time helps make sense of the past and conceptualise alternative futures.
TICKETS: £10 via Ticket Source. BOOKING ESSENTIAL.
Selma Dabbagh is a British-Palestinian writer and lawyer. She holds an LLM from SOAS and a PhD from Goldsmiths University. She has worked for human rights organizations in Jerusalem, Cairo, and London. Selma’s debut novel Out of It (Bloomsbury 2011) is set between Gaza, London, and the Gulf. Her fiction includes short stories, radio plays, as well as productions for stage and screen. She is the editor of We Wrote in Symbols: Love and Lust by Arab Women Writers (Saqi 2021) and a judge for the 2025 EBRD Literature Prize. She blogs for the London Review of Books on Gaza.
Alexei Sayle is an actor, author, stand-up comedian, television presenter and former recording artist. One of the leading lights of the alternative comedy movement in the 1980s, he appeared in The Comic Strip, The Young Ones and Dr Who, before making several comedy series of his own, including Alexei Sayle’s Stuff, The All New Alexei Sayle Show and Alexei Sayle’s Merry-G-Round. His film appearances range from Gorky Park to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. He’s written two short story collections, five novels and a memoir, Stalin Ate My Homework, as well as columns for various publications over the years. He can be heard on Alexei Sayle’s Imaginary Sandwich Bar and Alexei Sayle’s Strangers on a Train on BBC Sounds, and weekly episodes of the Alexei Sayle Podcast.
Previous Longplayer Conversations have included Kate Briggs and Daisy Hildyard, Richard Sabin and Dr. Sada Mire, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Timothy Morton, Chris Watson and Sir David Attenborough, Marina Warner and Ali Smith, Brian Eno and David Graeber.
