Curated playlist

English people with disabilities

Keira KnightleyKeira Knightley stood on a plank for two days and refused a stunt double.
Ozzy OsbourneOn the 5th of July 2025, Ozzy Osbourne sat on a black throne at Villa Park in Birmingham, because Parkinson's disease had left him unable to stand. More than 40,000 people filled the ground. At its peak, the livestream drew 5.8 million…
Mel BMel B performed with the Spice Girls at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, and the reunion set a record of its own. Twitter users sent more than 116,000 messages a minute during the show, making it the most tweeted…
Liam PayneLiam Payne, the English singer and songwriter who lived from 1993 to 2024, once performed in front of 26,000 people at a Wolverhampton Wanderers football match. He was still a child, and almost nobody beyond his home area knew his name.…
Kray twinsThe Kray twins were convicted of murder in 1969, yet crowds of thousands lined up to applaud when Reggie Kray was buried at Chingford Mount Cemetery in October 2000. Ronald and Reginald Kray were identical brothers from Haggerston in East…
Peter SutcliffePeter William Sutcliffe was questioned by police nine times during a five-year hunt for the killer the press called the Yorkshire Ripper, and each time he was let go. He was a heavy goods vehicle driver from Bradford, in the north of…
David BeckhamSir David Beckham became something of a household name on the 17th of August 1996, the opening day of the Premier League season, with a single shot from 57 yards. Manchester United were already 2-0 up against Wimbledon when Beckham noticed…
Richard BransonRichard Branson, born on the 18th of July 1950 in Blackheath, London, left school at sixteen with a prediction ringing in his ears. On his last day, his headmaster, Robert Drayson, told him he would either end up in prison or become a…
Sarah MullallySarah Mullally became the 106th archbishop of Canterbury when her election was legally confirmed at St Paul's Cathedral on the 28th of January 2026. Her working life did not begin in a cathedral close. It began on hospital wards, and for…
Florence WelchFlorence Welch, the English singer and songwriter, chose the name of her band while the clock was running out. About an hour before her first gig, she still had no name to announce. Her best idea was Florence Robot Is A Machine, which she…
MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…
Russell BrandRussell Brand, the English comedian and podcaster, faced Jeremy Paxman on BBC Newsnight on the 23rd of October 2013. Asked what a revolution would look like, he gave an answer about money. He said: "I say profit is a filthy word, because…
Jamie Campbell BowerJamie Campbell Bower once needed up to eight hours of make-up work in a single day to become Vecna, the monstrous villain of the Netflix series Stranger Things. The man beneath the prosthetics is an English actor, singer, and guitarist. He…
Syd BarrettSyd Barrett walked into Abbey Road Studios on the 5th of June 1975, and the men inside did not know him. He had shaved off his hair and even his eyebrows, and he was overweight. He was 29. The musicians were Pink Floyd, the band he had…
Tyson FuryTyson Fury was born on the 12th of August 1988, three months too early and weighing just 1 lb. The doctors told his father, John, that the baby had little chance of living. John had already lost two daughters the same way. He named his son…
YungbludYungblud is the stage name of Dominic Richard Harrison, an English musician and actor. On the 18th of February 2021, his live cover of David Bowie's "Life on Mars?" was chosen as a soundtrack for NASA's Perseverance rover landing on Mars.…