The Sohemian Society

Founded in 2003, the London-based Sohemian Society began by staging talks, Q-and-As, guided walks, slide-shows, film screenings, and even small-scale theatrical productions, all of which were connected to Soho's bohemian past. It soon widened its focus, hosting events about everything from Italian Futurist art to the evolution of English slang. 

Previous speakers at the Sohemian Society include the musician and Soho character, George Melly; Jack Kerouac's friend and travelling companion, Carolyn Cassidy; Allan Sillitoe, author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning; the wartime diarist Joan Wyndham; the Carry On actress and Establishment Club regular Fenella Fielding; the 1960s music producer Joe Boyd; the memoirist and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson; the historian Virginia Nicolson; the writer and film-maker Jonathan Meades; John Preston, author of A Very English Scandal and The Dig; the memoirist and Beatles' associate Barry Miles; the actors Murray Melvin and Dudley Sutton; the writer Iain Sinclair; the style commentator Peter York; the novelist Jake Arnott; the couturier and Hollywood costume designer Morton Myles; and the journalist Virginia Ironside, who was among that select group for whom the Swinging Sixties really swung.