Thursday 23 April 2026 – Transcript Recording
Discover through neuroscience and performance, how Shakespeare’s stirring, revolutionary language energises the brain:
A G E N D A
Veronica Franklin Gould MBE, Founder and President of Arts for Dementia
Dr Christopher Bailey, Founding Co-Director of the Jameel Arts and Health Centre
Professor Paul Matthews OBE, co-author of The Bard on the Brain, explains the neuroscientific impact of Shakespeare’s revolutionary language
Dame Harriet Walter DBE, Shakespearean actress and author.
Professor Selina Busby, Professor of Applied and Social Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (RCSSD) chairs the roundtable, and Q&A with RCSSD Applied Theatre students.
Sian Brand, Co-Chair of the Social Prescribing Network.
Who for?
Drama Colleges, Theatre Company learning departments, theatre students, all interested in Shakespearean language and keen to preserve brain health
S P E A K E R B I O G R A P H I E S
CHRISTOPHER BAILEY is a founding Co-Director of the Jameel Arts and Health Lab, and Arts and Health Lead at the World Health Organisation (2018-25). Through his series of Shakespeare and Wellbeing workshops and performances, he explores the Bard’s references to mental, social, and physical wellbeing, and highlights how engaging with Shakespeare can foster empathy, resilience, and personal healing.
PROFESSOR PAUL MATTHEWS OBE is the Director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, leading the national research centre in developing innovative imaging and technology for health sciences. He is Professor of Translational Neuroscience at Imperial College London, a Group Leader in the UK Dementia Research Institute and co-author of The Bard on the Brain: Understanding the Mind Through the Art of Shakespeare and the Science of Brain Imaging
DAME HARRIET WALTER DBE has performed in over 20 Shakespeare plays as well as many other great world classics. She is maybe best known for her TV roles in Succession, Killing Eve and The Crown and the film Sense and Sensibility. Her books include Other People’s Shoes, Brutus and Other Heroines, Facing It and She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said.
SELINA BUSBY is Professor of Social and Applied Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where she leads the MA Applied Theatre course. Her research and practice focus on theatre that invites the possibility of change, both in contemporary plays and in participatory performance. Selina is co-editor of Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and author of Applied Theatre, A Pedagogy of Utopia(2021).
SIÂN BRAND is Co-Chair of the Social Prescribing Network. With more than 15 years’ experience in local NHS commissioning grounded in public health, Siân possesses extensive expertise in the voluntary and community sector, as well as in health creation. Siân is co-author of the BSc in Health, Wellbeing & Community
VERONICA FRANKLIN GOULD MBE, founding president of Arts for Dementia, and editor of A.R.T.S. for Brain Health: Social Prescribing transforming the diagnostic narrative for Dementia: From Despair to Desire. Veronica is an art historian, author of G F Watts: The Last Great Historian and is currently writing a centenary monograph on The Painter’s Actress, Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928).