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Guest Readers

We are delighted to welcome the fabulous Cerys Matthews to join our line-up of famous faces to read at our Charity Carol Concert this year.

Matthews is a musician, author, broadcaster and festival owner, (The Good Life Experience), Vice President of Hay festival of Literature and the Arts, and of Shelter Cymru, and President of London Male Voice Choir, Gwalia.

She is the roving cultural reporter for BBC One Show, hosts and programmes an award-winning weekly show on BBC 6 music, was founding member of multi-million selling band Catatonia and sang on winter favourite, Baby it's Cold Outside, with Sir Tom Jones.

Matthews lives in Notting Dale with her husband and three of their five children.

We also welcome the fabulously funny Frank Skinner to join our celebrity reading line-up on 14th December​.

Frank Skinner’s live career began in 1987 when he spent £400 of his last £435 booking a room at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Four years later he returned and beat fellow nominees Jack Dee and Eddie Izzard to take home comedy’s most prestigious prize, The Perrier Award. Skinner’s last live show, Man In a Suit, sold out its debut run at London’s Soho Theatre and a subsequent five-week residency at the Leicester Square Theatre.

The Frank Skinner Show (ITV) is widely credited as setting the tone for the modern comedic chat show and ran for nine years, attracting 11 million viewers at its peak. Skinner has also hosted three series of Frank Skinner’s Opinionated for BBC Two, and recently presented a one-off documentary, Frank Skinner on Muhammad Ali, for BBC One. As a radio presenter, Skinner’s award-winning Absolute Radio show attracts over one million listeners per week, has achieved ten million podcast downloads and saw him inducted into the Radio Academy’s Hall of Fame in 2016.

Frank Skinner

Adrian Chiles began his television and broadcasting career with a three-week work experience stint at the BBC. 

He can now count more than 25 years in the industry with highlights including his award winning BBC Radio Five Live programme, Chiles on Saturday, BBC TV’s Working LunchThe Apprentice: You’re FiredMOTD2 and The One Show, and ITV’s Daybreak and football coverage. 

He explored his own and others' faith in a three part BBC series, My Mediterranean; went back to his roots for Panorama to discover why Britain voted for Brexit; and looked back at an extraordinary game of football in BBC 2's Whites vs Blacks: How Football Changed a Nation. Most recently, he teamed up with his former colleague, Christine Bleakley for a three-part series on friendship for BBC NI. He can be heard regularly on BBC Radio Five where he presents Five Live Daily two days a week.

Emily Maitlis is one of the main BBC news presenters.

Emily Maitlis is an award-winning broadcaster who presents Newsnight – the BBC's flagship daily current affairs programme on BBC 2 – and BBC elections coverage both here and in the United States. She has spent the last 18 months covering the US presidential primaries and campaign on the road, and has interviewed Donald Trump a number of times.

She won the Harold Wincott Business Programme of the Year Award for her documentary with Mark Zuckerberg, Inside Facebook. Emily has interviewed numerous figures from the worlds of politics, sports and the arts, including the last five UK prime ministers.

She has written for GQ, The Sunday Times, The Spectator, The Guardian, the Evening Standard and New Statesman.

In 2017, she was named Broadcast Journalist of the Year by the London Press Club Awards.

Emily Maitlis

My name is Mathilda Hurley and I have won a competition to read my poem at the Carol Concert. I wrote the poem myself.
 
I am nine years old. I am in Year 5 at St Vincent de Paul Catholic Primary School in Westminster. I really like my school  because of all my friends and the great teachers who care about us. I am half English and half Italian and speak both languages well. My favourite book is “Love from Lexie” by Cathy Cassidy.
 
I was born in Westminster and have lived in Victoria all my life. I live with my Mum, Dad  and my little brother who has just started nursery at the school and is getting on very well. 
 
I love singing, dancing, gymnastics, football and reading. My favourite subjects at school are English and PE. 

Mathilda Hurley