What happens when a poet takes the stage not to perform his own work, but to draw a performance out of someone else’s life?
That is the question at the heart of First Five Live, the cultural series curated and hosted by award-winning Nigerian British poet Yomi Ṣode, which returns to the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall for a brand new 2026 season. And it is a question we think your readers are exactly the right audience to explore.
First Five is built around a deceptively simple dramaturgical premise: two books, two tracks, one person. Each guest is invited to share the five formative influences that shaped their life and work. In Yomi’s hands, that framework becomes something closer to a live portrait, a carefully shaped evening in which autobiography, memory, culture and creativity are drawn out in real time, in front of an audience and cannot be repeated.
Yomi is not a passive interviewer – as a poet and performer, he brings an acute sensitivity to language, timing and the architecture of a conversation. The result is a form of live storytelling that sits at the intersection of theatre, literature and oral tradition and that trusts the unrepeatable nature of a live encounter to do its work.
The 2026 season opens on Friday 10th April with AJ Odudu, one of the UK’s most recognisable broadcasters, who will trace the journey from a lively Lancashire childhood to fronting some of the biggest shows on British television.
Each evening is held in the intimate Elgar Room, a space that rewards exactly the kind of close, attentive presence that live performance demands. Musical curation comes from DJ Conrad Kira, with books available from Round Table Books
