Two Minutes at the George IV

On Wednesday evening I found myself at the George IV on Chiswick High Road, one of twenty-one local writers given two minutes apiece to talk about a book. Two minutes! After a lifetime of talking for a living, you would think that would be easy. It is not. There is a great deal I could say about Dinner Dates, and rather less that will fit into the time it takes to make a cup of tea.

The Local Authors Showcase opened the 18th Chiswick Book Festival, hosted this year by Capital Xtra DJ Jojo Silva, and the Boston Room was packed. That is how it should be. Chiswick has always been thick with writers, and it is a pleasure to stand among them rather than read about them.

I was there for Playing Cupid, my memoir of the introduction agency I founded in the late 1980s while I was still singing, producing shows and bringing up my children. It is a book about dating before the apps: no profiles, no swiping, just people, parties, and the extraordinary muddle of trying to help strangers find one another. The festival very kindly called it funny and honest. I shall settle for that.

Publication day and the showcase fell on the same date, 9 September, which felt rather like being sent on stage and told the curtain is already up. There is something rather wonderful about launching a book in the neighbourhood where so much of that life was lived.

If two minutes was not enough, the rest of the story is between the covers. Playing Cupid is out now, and I should love you to read it.

Read more about the Chiswick Book Festival 2026 Local Authors night here.