“‘Wokery’ is a nonsense term. All ‘virtue’ is seen externally and is therefore ‘signalled’ in some way. Virtues are good."

Paterson Joseph is a cultural icon, best known for his roles in TV and film, from Peep Show to Wonka, and his career in theatre with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Beginning his career as a Shakespearean actor, Joseph later transitioned to TV with appearances in Casualty and Law and Order, alongside a successful film career. He is the author of The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho, a novel which brilliantly conveys the life and times of the 18th-century composer through fictionalised diaries, letters, and commentary. He is also Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University which has cemented him as both an actor and public intellectual.

“I so admire Joseph's verbal imagination which seems to effortlessly bridge the gap between our time and Sancho's." — Harriet Walter

"Joseph has taken an actual man and, two and a half centuries later, made him as thoroughly himself, and as fully present, as he was the first time round." — Telegraph