The EDF London Eye is to celebrate the capital’s top Londoners in a star-studded special event.
The landmark, which was erected 15 years ago, will be set to a special slow rotation on May 1 and each of its 32 capsules will hold a talk by prominent speakers including historian Dan Cruickshank, gangster widow Kate Kray and film-makers Don Letts and Julien Temple, on men and women who have helped make London great.
Ticket-holders can choose whether they want to hear about David Bowie, the dandy Beau Brummell, footballer Bobby Moore or politician Herbert Morrison as brought to life by former mayor Ken Livingston in the Thirty-Two Londoners event.
Former poet laureate Andrew Motion will speak on John Keats who was a “quintessential Londoner” even if his genius set him apart, he said. “Cockney-born, Enfield-educated, Hampstead-living, from the summit of the Eye it’s possible to see the shape of his whole life.”
Biographer Claire Tomalin said she agreed to take part “because I thought it would be fun” and will speak on the 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys and his life of “shopping, theatre-going, pursuing young women, attending committee meetings in Whitehall, taking boats up and down the river”. She added: “He would have loved the Eye.”
The subject for cartoonist Martin Rowson will be the artist William Hogarth whom he hailed as “London’s first real visual biographer”.
“Thirty-two Londoners offers a unique opportunity to get a bird’s eye view of Hogarth’s London, still writhing away beneath the modern city’s marginally cleaner streets,” he said.
Hendrick’s Gin have devised 32 different cocktails, one in honour of each London borough, to be served to guests as they join the lecture ride which is organised by party and event promoters Suzette Field of A Curious Invitation and Stephen Coates of Antique Beat. Information and tickets, price £35, at www.32londoners.com
